相关论文: Thermionic-enhanced near-field thermophotovoltaics
Biophotovoltaics has emerged as a promising technology for generating renewable energy since it relies on living organisms as inexpensive, self-repairing and readily available catalysts to produce electricity from an abundant resource -…
Above-threshold light emission from plasmonic tunnel junctions, when emitted photons have energies significantly higher than the energy scale of the incident electrons, has attracted much recent interest in nano-optics, while the underlying…
Nanoscale electronics and photonics are among the most promising research areas providing functional nano-components for data transfer and signal processing. By adopting metal-based optical antennas as a disruptive technological vehicle, we…
Surface plasmon enhanced processes and hot-carrier dynamics in plasmonic nanostructures are of great fundamental interest to reveal light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Using plasmonic tunnel junctions as a platform supporting both…
Solid-state thermoelectric devices are currently used in applications ranging from thermocouple sensors to power generators in satellites, to portable air-conditioners and refrigerators. With the ever-rising demand throughout the world for…
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…
Nanophotonic engineering of light-matter interaction at subwavelength scale allows thermal radiation that is fundamentally different from that of traditional thermal emitters and provides exciting opportunities for various thermal-photonic…
Wearable biosensors increasingly require continuous and battery-free power sources, but conventional skin-mounted thermoelectric generators are limited by the small temperature differences available in real environments. This work…
Plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) hold tremendous promise for catalyzing light-driven chemical reactions. The conventionally assumed detrimental absorption loss from plasmon damping can now be harvested to drive chemical transformations of the…
The radiance of thermal emission, as described by Planck law, depends only on the emissivity and temperature of a body, and increases monotonically with the temperature rise at any emitted wavelength. Nonthermal radiation, such as…
We introduce new micron-gap thermophotovoltaic systems enhanced by tungsten nanowires. We theoretically show that these systems allow the frequency-selective super-Planckian spectrum of radiative heat transfer that promises a very efficient…
A new approach is introduced to significantly improve the performance of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems by using low-dimensional thermal emitters and photovoltaic (PV) cells. By reducing the thickness of both the emitter and the PV cell,…
Near-field heat engines are devices that convert the evanescent thermal field supported by a primary source into usable mechanical energy. By analyzing the thermodynamic performance of three-body near-field heat engines, we demonstrate that…
We propose a solar thermal energy conversion system consisting of a solar absorber, a thermoradiative cell or negative illumination photodiode, and a photovoltaic cell. Because it is a heat engine, this system can also be paired with…
Single-junction photovoltaic cells are considered to be efficient solar energy converters, but even ideal cells cannot exceed the their fundamental thermodynamic efficiency limit, first analysed by Shockley and Queisser (SQ). For moderated…
We ask the question, what are the ideal characteristics of a near-field thermophotovoltaic cell? Our search leads us to a reformulation of near-field radiative heat transfer in terms of the joint density of electronic states of the…
Frequency up-conversion of a few low-energy photons into a single high-energy photon contributes to imaging, light sources, and detection. However, the up-converting of many photons exhibits negligible efficiency. Up-conversion through…
Managing the emission and absorption of thermal radiation is crucial for a wide range of technologies, from radiative cooling of buildings and vehicles to thermal regulation of satellites and future lunar and Mars habitats. Despite this…
Near-field thermophotovoltaic systems can achieve ultra-high power densities, however, this often comes at the cost of reduced efficiency. We show that this power-efficiency trade-off can be mitigated through substrate engineering. We…
Recently, asymmetric plasmonic nanojunctions [Karnetzky et. al., Nature Comm. 2471, 9 (2018)] have shown promise as on-chip electronic devices to convert femtosecond optical pulses to current bursts, with a bandwidth of multi-terahertz…