Periodic corrugations to increase efficiency of thermophotovoltaic emitting structures
In this letter we consider the question of designing insulator/metal thermovoltaic structures with periodically corrugated interfaces that give optimal performance based on the metric of useful power density. Using a Monte Carlo approach in a robust, rapid, and high-accuracy numerical simulation strategy, we have identified such interface shapes. Here, we searched among the class of sinusoids and found that a flat-interface configuration could be significantly improved in transverse magnetic polarization. More specifically, we found that (i.) the performance improves with increasing corrugation amplitude (ii.) up to a maximum, (iii.) the shape of the corrugation is largely irrelevant, and (iv.) the period of the corrugation should be chosen in connection to the bandgap energy of the photovoltaic cell. For the latter we provide a simple expression as a starting point for practitioners interested in fabricating such structures.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) (SC-21); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1559038
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 114; ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Accelerating the discovery of multilayer nanostructures with analytic differentiation of the transfer matrix equations
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journal | January 2020 |
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