Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting 2018 (NFM18)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2018.003
Publication date: 6th July 2018
Photovoltaic (PV) cells are efficient heat engines, converting incident photon energy to electrical energy. In the case of solar PV, the cell receives radiation from the Sun – which can be approximated as a black body at 5500oC – and converts part of the received radiation to electricity. In an ideal solar PV cell, the maximum energy conversion efficiency is ~33.5%, the famous Shockley-Queisser limit. Entropic losses, thermalization, and unused below-bandgap photons are the main limits of solar PV.
If instead of relying on the Sun, a local black body is used as the source of photons, many of the limitations mentioned can be minimized. This idea, known as thermo-photovoltaics (TPV), has been known since 1960. With a local thermal emitter at a suitable temperature these losses can be minimized and high efficiencies are attainable. Previous efforts have attempted to tune the emissivity spectrum of the emitter, minimizing the amount of below‑bandgap radiation reaching the photovoltaic cell. This approach, however, bring some challenges due to the difficulty of developing a high quality spectral filter that remains stable at high temperatures.
We report on a thermo‑photovoltaic device that relies on the band‑edge of a photovoltaic absorber to spectrally filter the incoming radiation. Photons above the bandgap are converted to electricity, while the unused and unabsorbed photons below the bandgap are reflected by a ~94% reflective rear electrode and recovered by the source of radiation. Our system uses graphite as the blackbody emitter, and In0.55Ga0.45As (bandgap of 0.74eV) as the photovoltaic absorber. For an emitter temperature of ~1200°C, we report a power conversion efficiency of 28.1%.
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