Lim Mikyung, Jin Seokmin, Lee Seung S, Lee Bong Jae
Opt Express. 2015 Apr 6;23(7):A240-53. doi: 10.1364/OE.23.00A240.
The present work theoretically analyzes the performance of the near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion device for low temperature applications (Tsource ∼ 500 K). In the proposed TPV system, doped Si is employed as the source because its optical property can be readily tuned by changing the doping concentration, and InSb is selected as a TPV cell because of its low bandgap energy (0.17 eV). In order to enhance the near-field thermal radiation between the source and the TPV cell, monolayer of graphene is coated on the cell side so that surface plasmon can play a critical role in heat transfer. It is found that monolayer of graphene can significantly enhance the power throughput by 30 times and the conversion efficiency by 6.1 times compared to the case without graphene layer. The resulting maximum conversion efficiency is 19.4% at 10-nm vacuum gap width.
本工作从理论上分析了用于低温应用（热源温度约500K）的近场热光伏（TPV）能量转换装置的性能。在所提出的TPV系统中，采用掺杂硅作为热源，因为其光学性质可通过改变掺杂浓度轻松调节，而选择锑化铟作为TPV电池是因其带隙能量低（0.17eV）。为了增强热源与TPV电池之间的近场热辐射，在电池一侧涂覆单层石墨烯，以便表面等离子体在热传递中发挥关键作用。研究发现，与没有石墨烯层的情况相比，单层石墨烯可使功率通量显著提高30倍，转换效率提高6.1倍。在真空间隙宽度为10nm时，得到的最大转换效率为19.4%。
