Multiple-dopant selective emitter
- Space Power Institute, 231 Leach Center, Auburn, Alabama 36849 (United States)
Power efficiency is one of the major concerns in designing and developing a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) generator. Erbium oxide and ytterbium oxide emitter have unique selective line emission, which exhibit a high emittance at a particular wavelength and very low emittance in the rest of the infrared spectrum. The highly selective line emissions are well matched to the response characteristics of some photovoltaic (PV) cells, e.g. erbium oxide emission match well to InGaAs cells and ytterbium oxide emission match well to silicon cells. Obviously, using these emitters can increase emitter efficiency. In addition to efficiency, power density is the other major concern in TPV system design. The disadvantage in using erbium oxide or ytterbium oxide emitters is low photovoltaic convertible power due to the narrow line emissions. One of the ways to increase the photovoltaic convertible power is to broaden the line emissions. In this paper, the authors present a new selective emitter. The emitter contains multiple-doped elements and gives higher efficiency and photovoltaic convertible radiant power than either erbium oxide or ytterbium oxide emitters alone. The emissive spectra, emittance and photovoltaic convertible radiant power of the emitter are also presented. Additionally, the response of a 0.6 eV InGaAs PV cell to the selective band emitter as well as selective line emitters will be discussed. {copyright} {ital 1997 American Institute of Physics.}
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-95ER12156
- OSTI ID:
- 664567
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9705119--
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 401; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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