Related papers: Revisiting Submicron-Gap Thermionic Power Generati…
This article proposes a new energy harvesting concept that greatly enhances thermionic power generation with high e ciency by exploiting the near- field enhancement of thermal radiation. The proposed near-field enhanced thermionic energy…
We present a comprehensive analysis of a dual, micro-gap thermionic-thermoelectric hybrid energy converter by developing a detailed theoretical model of the system. The Space-charge and near-field effects in thermionic conversion and the…
Solid-state heat-to-electrical power converters are thermodynamic engines that use fundamental particles, such as electrons or photons, as working fluids. Virtually all commercially available devices are thermoelectric generators, in which…
Thermionic energy conversion (TEC) using nano materials is an emerging field of research. Graphene can stand high temperature as high as 4600 K in vacuum. Its work function can be engineered from its high value (for monolayer/bilayer) 4.6…
Thermionics and thermophotovoltaics are solid-state technologies that convert high-temperature heat into electricity by utilizing fundamental particles, electrons in thermionics and photons in thermophotovoltaics, as energy carriers. Both…
This work investigates an alternative to thermophotovoltaics for harvesting thermal and optical energy via photon coupling and thermionic energy conversion. In this device, a heat source is radiatively coupled to a thermionic electron…
Most attention to improving vacuum thermionic energy conversion device (TEC) technology has been on improving electron emission with little attention to collector optimization. A model was developed to characterize the output…
Electric power may, in principle, be generated in a highly efficient manner from heat created by focused solar irradiation, chemical combustion, or nuclear decay by means of thermionic energy conversion. As the conversion efficiency of the…
Electron transpiration cooling (ETC) can reduce aerothermal loads on sharp hypersonic leading edges, but its performance is governed by whether thermionically emitted electrons escape the hot surface or return as cathode-directed backflow.…
We investigate the performance of a micro gap vacuum thermionic energy converter considering the loss mechanisms due to the space charge effect and interelectrode radiative heat transfer. The dependencies of the space charge effect and…
Thermionic converters generate electricity from thermal energy in a power cycle based on vacuum emission of electrons. While thermodynamically efficient, practical implementations are limited by the extreme temperatures required for…
Electron transpiration cooling (ETC) offers a promising approach for thermal management of hypersonic vehicles by leveraging thermionic emission from the leading edge. While emitted electrons cool the surface, subsequent collection of…
Graphene thermionic electron emission across high-interface-barrier involves energetic electrons residing far away from the Dirac point where the Dirac cone approximation of the band structure breaks down. Here we construct a full-band…
We present a systematic optimization of nighttime thermoelectric power generation system utilizing radiative cooling. We show that an electrical power density over 2 W/m2, two orders of magnitude higher than the previously reported…
The possibility of night-time power generation has recently stimulated interest in using the radiative sky cooling mechanism with thermoelectric generators (TEG). These passive, low-temperature difference devices have been shown to generate…
In this paper, we propose a model to investigate the electron thermionic emission from a single-layer graphene (ignoring the effects of substrate) and to explore its application as the emitter of thermionic energy convertor (TIC). An…
Conventional thermionic power generators and refrigerators utilize a barrier in the direction of transport to selectively transmit high-energy electrons. Here we show that the energy spectrum of electrons transmitted in this way is not…
Advances in solid-state device design now allow the spectrum of transmitted electrons in thermionic and thermoelectric devices to be engineered in ways that were not previously possible. Here we show that the shape of the electron energy…
Environmentally-powered computer systems operate on renewable energy harvested from their environment, such as solar or wind, and stored in batteries. While harvesting environmental energy has long been necessary for small-scale embedded…
In-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has become an important technique to study dynamic processes at highest spatial resolution and one branch is the investigation of phenomena related with electrical currents. Here, we present…