Graphene-on-silicon near-field thermophotovoltaic cell

Abstract

A graphene layer on top of a dielectric can dramatically influence ability of the material to radiative heat transfer. This property of graphene is used to improve the performance and reduce costs of near-field thermophotovoltaic cells. Instead of low bandgap semiconductors it is proposed to use graphene-on-silicon Schottky photovoltaic cells. One layer of graphene absorbs around 90% of incoming radiation and increases the heat transfer. This is due to excitation of plasmons in graphene, which are automatically tuned in resonance with the emitted light in the mid infrared range. The absorbed radiation excites electron-hole pairs in graphene, which are separated by the surface field induced by the Schottky barrier. For a quasi-monochromatic source the generated power is one order of magnitude larger and efficiency is on the same level as for semiconductor photovoltaic cells.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Applied

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• Graphene-based amplification and tuning of near-field radiative heat transfer between dissimilar polar materials
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• Design of an indium arsenide cell for near-field thermophotovoltaic devices
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• Contribution of the acoustic waves to near-field heat transfer
• Inelastic thermoelectric transport and fluctuations in mesoscopic system
• Microgap thermophotovoltaic systems with low emission temperature and high electric output
• Thermal graphene metamaterials and epsilon-near-zero high temperature plasmonics
• Near-field thermal transport between twisted bilayer graphene
• First-principles method to study near-field radiative heat transfer
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• Reflectance of graphene-coated dielectric plates in the framework of Dirac model: Joint action of energy gap and chemical potential
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