Abstract
Solar tower plant is considered to have a power generation capacity similar to that of nuclear power plant. However, the efficiency is limited by the maximum temperature of the working fluid. Therefore, a tandem power generation by adding thermionic energy converter is proposed. Efficiency of thermionic energy converters (TECs) has not yet reached enough to implementation for commercial adoption. In this paper, in order to improve efficiency of thermionic energy converter based on the premise of using solar irradiation, assistance of plasmon resonance to thermionic electron emission is studied. It is found that light energy near the peak of the solar spectrum can be absorbed as thermal energy from theoretical calculation of the Kretschmann geometry. Furthermore, results of FDTD calculation shows that the increase of energy absorption is expected from the smaller group velocity of surface plasmons. Based on the results, the TEC device is designed and under development through microfabrication technology.
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