Near-field thermophotovotaic devices with surrounding non-contact reflectors for efficient photon recycling

  • Inoue T
  • Suzuki T
  • Ikeda K
  • et al.
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Abstract

Near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power generation has been attracting increasing attention as a promising approach for efficient conversion of heat into electricity with high output power density. Here, we numerically investigate near-field TPV devices with surrounding reflectors for efficient recycling of low-energy photons, which do not contribute to the power generation. We reveal that the conversion efficiency of a near-field TPV system can be drastically increased by introducing a pair of reflectors above and below the system, especially when the two mirrors are not in contact with the emitter and absorber. In addition, we investigate the influence of non-perfect photon recycling on the TPV efficiency and reveal that near-field TPV systems are more robust against the decrease of the reflectivity of the reflectors than the far-field TPV systems.

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Inoue, T., Suzuki, T., Ikeda, K., Asano, T., & Noda, S. (2021). Near-field thermophotovotaic devices with surrounding non-contact reflectors for efficient photon recycling. Optics Express, 29(7), 11133. https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.419529

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