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Coupled Charge and Radiation Transport Processes in Thermophotovoltaic and Thermoradiative Cells
- Source :
- Phys. Rev. Applied 15, 054035 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Accurate modeling of charge transport and both thermal and luminescent radiation is crucial to the understanding and design of radiative thermal energy converters. Charge carrier dynamics in semiconductors are well-described by the Poisson-drift-diffusion equations, and thermal radiation in emitter/absorber structures can be computed using multilayer fluctuational electrodynamics. These two types of energy flows interact through radiation absorption/luminescence and charge carrier generation/recombination. However, past research has typically only assumed limited interaction, with thermal radiation absorption as an input for charge carrier models to predict device performance. To examine this assumption, we develop a fully-coupled iterative model of charge and radiation transport in semiconductor devices, and we use our model to analyze near-field and far-field GaSb thermophotovoltaic and thermoradiative systems. By comparing our results to past methods that do not consider cross-influences between charge and radiation transport, we find that a fully-coupled approach is necessary to accurately model photon recycling and near-field enhancement of external luminescence. Because these effects can substantially alter device performance, our modeling approach can aid in the design of efficient thermophotovoltaic and thermoradiative systems.<br />Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures
- Subjects :
- Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Journal :
- Phys. Rev. Applied 15, 054035 (2021)
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.2101.04746
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.15.054035