A solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) system can transform incident concentrated solar energy into electrical energy with an efficiency that could be higher than the Shockley–Queisser limit. Near-field thermophotovoltaic (NF-TPV) devices can generate larger electrical power output than traditional far-field TPV devices with the aid of photon tunneling. Moreover, multi-junction PV cells can boost the performance of TPV devices by effectively distributing the absorbed photon energy inside the PV cell. In this work, we design a multi-junction-based near-field STPV system with a practical and high-temperature stable graphite intermediate structure. To optimize the system configuration, we employ a genetic algorithm and a surrogate model based on an artificial neural network, which enables us to suggest a better design approach for the multi-junction-based NF-STPV system between the power output density and power conversion efficiency maximization scenarios. When the concentration factor of the incident solar energy is 5000 and the absorber-to-emitter area ratio is 3, we can achieve a system efficiency of 23%. By introducing a material whose emissivity is as high as a blackbody on the solar absorber, the system efficiency can be further enhanced up to 35%.
References
1.
A.
Datas
and R.
Vaillon
, “Thermophotovoltaic energy conversion
,” in Ultra-High Temperature Thermal Energy Storage, Transfer and Conversion
(Elsevier
, 2021
), pp. 285
–308
.2.
N.-P.
Harder
and M. A.
Green
, “Thermophotonics
,” Semicond. Sci. Technol.
18
, S270
–S278
(2003
).3.
D.
Fan
, T.
Burger
, S.
McSherry
, B.
Lee
, A.
Lenert
, and S. R.
Forrest
, “Near-perfect photon utilization in an air-bridge thermophotovoltaic cell
,” Nature
586
, 237
–241
(2020
).4.
A.
LaPotin
, K. L.
Schulte
, M. A.
Steiner
, K.
Buznitsky
, C. C.
Kelsall
, D. J.
Friedman
, E. J.
Tervo
, R. M.
France
, M. R.
Young
, A.
Rohskopf
, S.
Verma
, E. N.
Wang
, and A.
Henry
, “Thermophotovoltaic efficiency of 40%
,” Nature
604
, 287
–291
(2022
).5.
A.
Narayanaswamy
and G.
Chen
, “Surface modes for near field thermophotovoltaics
,” Appl. Phys. Lett.
82
, 3544
–3546
(2003
).6.
K.
Park
, S.
Basu
, W. P.
King
, and Z. M.
Zhang
, “Performance analysis of near-field thermophotovoltaic devices considering absorption distribution
,” J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer
109
, 305
–316
(2008
).7.
M.
Francoeur
, R.
Vaillon
, and M. P.
Mengüç
, “Thermal impacts on the performance of nanoscale-gap thermophotovoltaic power generators
,” IEEE Trans. Energy Convers.
26
, 686
–698
(2011
).8.
R.
Vaillon
, J.-P.
Pérez
, C.
Lucchesi
, D.
Cakiroglu
, P.-O.
Chapuis
, T.
Taliercio
, and E.
Tournié
, “Micron-sized liquid nitrogen-cooled indium antimonide photovoltaic cell for near-field thermophotovoltaics
,” Opt. Express
27
, A11
–A24
(2019
).9.
S. P.
Philipps
, F.
Dimroth
, and A. W.
Bett
, “High-efficiency III–V multijunction solar cells
,” in McEvoy's Handbook of Photovoltaics
(Academic Press
, 2018
), pp. 439
–472
.10.
Y.
Wang
, H.
Liu
, and J.
Zhu
, “Solar thermophotovoltaics: Progress, challenges, and opportunities
,” APL Mater.
7
, 080906
(2019
).11.
Y.
Nam
, Y. X.
Yeng
, A.
Lenert
, P.
Bermel
, I.
Celanovic
, M.
Soljačić
, and E. N.
Wang
, “Solar thermophotovoltaic energy conversion systems with two-dimensional tantalum photonic crystal absorbers and emitters
,” Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells
122
, 287
–296
(2014
).12.
M.
Shimizu
, A.
Kohiyama
, and H.
Yugami
, “High-efficiency solar-thermophotovoltaic system equipped with a monolithic planar selective absorber/emitter
,” J. Photonics Energy
5
, 053099
(2015
).13.
Y.
Wang
, L.
Zhou
, Q.
Zheng
, H.
Lu
, Q.
Gan
, Z.
Yu
, and J.
Zhu
, “Spectrally selective solar absorber with sharp and temperature dependent cut-off based on semiconductor nanowire arrays
,” Appl. Phys. Lett.
110
, 201108
(2017
).14.
H.
Wang
, H.
Alshehri
, H.
Su
, and L.
Wang
, “Design, fabrication and optical characterizations of large-area lithography-free ultrathin multilayer selective solar coatings with excellent thermal stability in air
,” Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells
174
, 445
–452
(2018
).15.
J.-W.
Cho
, K.-J.
Lee
, T.-I.
Lee
, Y.-B.
Kim
, D.-G.
Choi
, Y.
Nam
, and S.-K.
Kim
, “Optical tunneling mediated sub-skin-depth high emissivity tungsten radiators
,” Nano Lett.
19
, 7093
–7099
(2019
).16.
M. A.
Abbas
, J.
Kim
, A. S.
Rana
, I.
Kim
, B.
Rehman
, Z.
Ahmad
, Y.
Massoud
, J.
Seong
, T.
Badloe
, K.
Park
et al., “Nanostructured chromium-based broadband absorbers and emitters to realize thermally stable solar thermophotovoltaic systems
,” Nanoscale
14
, 6425
–6436
(2022
).17.
M.
Shimizu
, T.
Furuhashi
, Z.
Liu
, and H.
Yugami
, “Highly confined spectrally selective absorber-emitter for effective solar thermophotovoltaics
,” Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells
245
, 111878
(2022
).18.
Z.
Omair
, G.
Scranton
, L. M.
Pazos-Outón
, T. P.
Xiao
, M. A.
Steiner
, V.
Ganapati
, P. F.
Peterson
, J.
Holzrichter
, H.
Atwater
, and E.
Yablonovitch
, “Ultraefficient thermophotovoltaic power conversion by band-edge spectral filtering
,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
116
, 15356
–15361
(2019
).19.
T. C.
Narayan
, L. Y.
Kuritzky
, D. P.
Nizamian
, B. A.
Johnson
, E. J.
Tervo
, A. R.
Young
, C.
Luciano
, M. K.
Arulanandam
, B. M.
Kayes
, E. E.
Perl
, M.
Limpinsel
, P.
Santhanam
, J.
Slack
, W.
Olavarria
, J.
Carapella
, M.
Young
, C.-L.
Wu
, Z. J.
Yu
, Z. C.
Holman
, R. R.
King
, M. A.
Steiner
, D. M.
Bierman
, A. J.
Ponec
, and J. A.
Briggs
, “World record demonstration of > 30% thermophotovoltaic conversion efficiency
,” in 47th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC)
(IEEE
, 2020
), pp. 1792
–1795
.20.
C.
Lucchesi
, D.
Cakiroglu
, J.-P.
Perez
, T.
Taliercio
, E.
Tournié
, P.-O.
Chapuis
, and R.
Vaillon
, “Near-field thermophotovoltaic conversion with high electrical power density and cell efficiency above 14%
,” Nano Lett.
21
, 4524
–4529
(2021
).21.
A.
Fiorino
, L.
Zhu
, D.
Thompson
, R.
Mittapally
, P.
Reddy
, and E.
Meyhofer
, “Nanogap near-field thermophotovoltaics
,” Nat. Nanotechnol.
13
, 806
–811
(2018
).22.
T.
Inoue
, T.
Koyama
, D. D.
Kang
, K.
Ikeda
, T.
Asano
, and S.
Noda
, “One-chip near-field thermophotovoltaic device integrating a thin-film thermal emitter and photovoltaic cell
,” Nano Lett.
19
, 3948
–3952
(2019
).23.
R.
Mittapally
, B.
Lee
, L.
Zhu
, A.
Reihani
, J. W.
Lim
, D.
Fan
, S. R.
Forrest
, P.
Reddy
, and E.
Meyhofer
, “Near-field thermophotovoltaics for efficient heat to electricity conversion at high power density
,” Nat. Commun.
12
, 4364
(2021
).24.
T.
Inoue
, K.
Ikeda
, B.
Song
, T.
Suzuki
, K.
Ishino
, T.
Asano
, and S.
Noda
, “Integrated near-field thermophotovoltaic device overcoming blackbody limit
,” ACS Photonics
8
, 2466
–2472
(2021
).25.
J.
Song
, J.
Jang
, M.
Lim
, M.
Choi
, J.
Lee
, and B. J.
Lee
, “Thermophotovoltaic energy conversion in far-to-near-field transition regime
,” ACS Photonics
9
, 1748
–1756
(2022
).26.
G. R.
Bhatt
, B.
Zhao
, S.
Roberts
, I.
Datta
, A.
Mohanty
, T.
Lin
, J.-M.
Hartmann
, R.
St-Gelais
, S.
Fan
, and M.
Lipson
, “Integrated near-field thermo-photovoltaics for heat recycling
,” Nat. Commun.
11
, 2545
(2020
).27.
J.
Seo
, P.-H.
Jung
, M.
Kim
, S.
Yang
, I.
Lee
, J.
Lee
, H.
Lee
, and B. J.
Lee
, “Design of a broadband solar thermal absorber using a deep neural network and experimental demonstration of its performance
,” Sci. Rep.
9
, 15028
(2019
).28.
M. D.
McKay
, R. J.
Beckman
, and W. J.
Conover
, “A comparison of three methods for selecting values of input variables in the analysis of output from a computer code
,” Technometrics
42
, 55
–61
(2000
).29.
J. A.
Gonzalez-Cuevas
, T. F.
Refaat
, M. N.
Abedin
, and H. E.
Elsayed-Ali
, “Calculations of the temperature and alloy composition effects on the optical properties of AlxGa1−xAsySb1−y and GaxIn1−xAsySb1−y in the spectral range 0.5–6 eV
,” J. Appl. Phys.
102
, 014504
(2007
).30.
M.
Sotoodeh
, A. H.
Khalid
, and A. A.
Rezazadeh
, “Empirical low-field mobility model for III–V compounds applicable in device simulation codes
,” J. Appl. Phys.
87
, 2890
–2900
(2000
).31.
J.
Song
, M.
Choi
, M.
Lim
, J.
Lee
, and B. J.
Lee
, “Comprehensive analysis of an optimized near-field tandem thermophotovoltaic converter
,” Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells
236
, 111522
(2022
).32.
E. D.
Palik
, Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids
(Academic Press
, San Diego, CA
, 1985
), Vol. 1
.33.
A. D.
Rakić
, A. B.
Djurišić
, J. M.
Elazar
, and M. L.
Majewski
, “Optical properties of metallic films for vertical-cavity optoelectronic devices
,” Appl. Opt.
37
, 5271
–5283
(1998
).34.
Q.
Ni
, R.
McBurney
, H.
Alshehri
, and L.
Wang
, “Theoretical analysis of solar thermophotovoltaic energy conversion with selective metafilm and cavity reflector
,” Sol. Energy
191
, 623
–628
(2019
).35.
G.
Neuer
, “Spectral and total emissivity measurements of highly emitting materials
,” Int. J. Thermophys.
16
, 257
–265
(1995
).36.
B.
Lee
, R.
Lentz
, T.
Burger
, B.
Roy-Layinde
, J.
Lim
, R. M.
Zhu
, D.
Fan
, A.
Lenert
, and S. R.
Forrest
, “Air-bridge Si thermophotovoltaic cell with high photon utilization
,” ACS Energy Lett.
7
, 2388
–2392
(2022
).37.
T.
Liao
, Z.
Yang
, W.
Peng
, X.
Chen
, and J.
Chen
, “Parametric characteristics and optimum criteria of a near-field solar thermophotovoltaic system at the maximum efficiency
,” Energy Convers. Manage.
152
, 214
–220
(2017
).38.
M.
Elzouka
and S.
Ndao
, “Towards a near-field concentrated solar thermophotovoltaic microsystem: Part I–Modeling
,” Sol. Energy
141
, 323
–333
(2017
).© 2022 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.
2022
Author(s)
You do not currently have access to this content.
