Design and global optimization of high-efficiency thermophotovoltaic systems
Despite their great promise, small experimental thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems at 1000 K generally exhibit extremely low power conversion efficiencies (approximately 1%), due to heat losses such as thermal emission of undesirable mid-wavelength infrared radiation. Photonic crystals (PhC) have the...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Optical Society of America
2011
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60925 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7327-4967 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7184-5831 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7244-3682 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7192-580X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3986-209X https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7232-4467 |
| Summary: | Despite their great promise, small experimental thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems at 1000 K generally exhibit extremely low power conversion efficiencies (approximately 1%), due to heat losses such as thermal emission of undesirable mid-wavelength infrared radiation. Photonic crystals (PhC) have the potential to strongly suppress such losses. However, PhC-based designs present a set of non-convex optimization problems requiring efficient objective function evaluation and global optimization algorithms. Both are applied to two example systems: improved micro-TPV generators and solar thermal TPV systems. Micro-TPV reactors experience up to a 27-fold increase in their efficiency and power output; solar thermal TPV systems see an even greater 45-fold increase in their efficiency (exceeding the Shockley–Quiesser limit for a single-junction photovoltaic cell). |
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