Theoretical design of nanoparticle-based spectrally emitter for thermophotovoltaic applications

Abstract

Wavelength-selective emitter is a critical component in thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems. How to evaluate and further enhance TPV efficiency for different PV cells by designing selective emitter is still needed for realistic applications. Hence, the impact of the nanoparticle-based spectrally selective emitter on the TPV efficiency was investigated in this work. The nanoparticle material, radius, volume fraction and thickness of emitter was optimized based on the spectral cut-off efficiency ηs and effective emittance efficiency ηe for GaSb and InGaAsSb PV cells respectively. Results showed that W emitter achieved better TPV performance than Ti and Ni emitters. The maximized ηsηe achieved 0.415 and 0.535 for GaSb and InGaAsSb PV cells at 1200 °C, indicating that this nanoparticle-based structure emitter was more suitable for the InGaAsSb PV cell with the low bandgap. These results give valuable insights into design opportunity for the selective emitter in various TPV systems.