Abstract
The combination of thermionic and photoelectric emission for solar energy conversion has been studied for years. There are two concepts for this synergistic process: hot electron conversion (HEC), which supposes that the excited carriers equilibrate among themselves, and photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE), which is based on the excited electrons' complete thermalization with the material. Here we present a new concept, thermally enhanced external photoelectric emission (TEPE), which describes the synergistic process under the photoelectric emission model. An experimental setup was applied and a photodiode with a bialkali cathode was tested. A conversion efficiency of 1.97×10−2% under 400nm illumination at 20°C was achieved, and a double enhancement of the efficiency was observed with the temperature rising to 70°C. Although the conversion efficiencies were small, the experiment demonstrates the energy conversion based on external photoelectric emission and the enhancement effect of heat.
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