- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review Applied

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Graphene-on-Silicon Near-Field Thermophotovoltaic Cell

V. B. Svetovoy1,2 and G. Palasantzas3

  • 1MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO 217, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands
  • 2Institute of Physics and Technology, Yaroslavl Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 150007, Yaroslavl, Russia
  • 3Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen-Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, Netherlands

PDF

Phys. Rev. Applied 2, 034006 – Published 11 September, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.2.034006

Abstract

A graphene layer on top of a dielectric can dramatically influence the ability of the material for radiative heat transfer. This property of graphene is used to improve the performance and reduce costs of near-field thermophotovoltaic cells. Instead of low-band-gap 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 strong absorption is due to the excitation of plasmons in graphene, which are automatically tuned in resonance with the emitted light in the midinfrared range. The absorbed radiation excites electron-hole pairs in graphene, which are separated by the surface field induced by the Schottky barrier. For a quasimonochromatic source the generated power is one order of magnitude larger and the efficiency is on the same level as for semiconductor photovoltaic cells.

View figure in article

Article Text

References (44)

  1. T. J. Coutts, An overview of thermophotovoltaic generation of electricity, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 66, 443 (2001).
  2. A. Lenert, D. M. Bierman, Y. Nam, W. R. Chan, I. Celanovic, M. Soljačić, and E. N. Wang, A nanophotonic solar thermophotovoltaic device, Nat. Nanotechnol. 9, 126 (2014).
  3. S. Basu, Z. M. Zhang, and C. J. Fu, Review of near-field thermal radiation and its application to energy conversion, Int. J. Energy Res. 33, 1203 (2009).
  4. M. Bosi, C. Ferrari, M. Franceso, M. Pinelli, P. R. Spina, and M. Venturini, Thermophotovoltaic generation: A state of the art review, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Envinromental Impact of Energy Systems, 2012, edited by U. Desideri, G. Manfrida, and E. Sciubba (Firenze University, Perugia, 2012), p. 258.
  5. D. Polder and M. Van Hove, Theory of radiative heat transfer between closely spaced bodies, Phys. Rev. B 4, 3303 (1971).
  6. J. B. Pendry, Radiative exchange of heat between nanostructures, J. Phys. Condens. Matter 11, 6621 (1999).
  7. C. H. Park, H. A. Haus, and M. S. Weinberg, Proximity-enhanced thermal radiation, J. Phys. D 35, 2857 (2002).
  8. J.-P. Mulet, K. Joulain, R. Carminati, and J.-J. Greffet, Enhanced radiative heat transfer at nanometric distances, Microscale Thermophys. Eng. 6, 209 (2002).
  9. C. Hargreaves, Anomalous radiative transfer between closely spaced bodies, Phys. Lett. A 30, 491 (1969).
  10. A. Kittel, W. Müller-Hirsch, J. Parisi, S.-A. Biehs, D. Reddig, and M. Holthaus, Near-field heat transfer in a scanning thermal microscope, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 224301 (2005).
  11. L. Hu, A. Narayanaswamy, X. Chen, and G. Chen, Near-field thermal radiation between two closely spaced glass plates exceeding Plancks blackbody radiation law, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 133106 (2008).
  12. A. Narayanaswamy, S. Shen, and G. Chen, Near-field radiative heat transfer between a sphere and a substrate, Phys. Rev. B 78, 115303 (2008).
  13. S. Shen, A. Narayanaswamy, and G. Chen, Surface phonon polaritons mediated energy transfer between nanoscale gaps, Nano Lett. 9, 2909 (2009).
  14. E. Rousseau, A. Siria, G. Jourdan, F. Comin, J. Chevrier, and J.-J. Greffet, Radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale, Nat. Photonics 3, 514 (2009).
  15. M. Laroche, R. Carminati, and J.-J. Greffet, Near-field thermophotovoltaic energy conversion, J. Appl. Phys. 100, 063704 (2006).
  16. K. Joulain, J.-P. Mulet, F. Marquier, R. Carminati, and J.-J. Greffet, Surface electromagnetic waves thermally excited: Radiative heat transfer, coherence properties and Casimir forces revisited in the near field, Surf. Sci. Rep. 57, 59 (2005).
  17. A. I. Volokitin and B. N. J. Persson, Near-field radiative heat transfer and noncontact friction, Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 1291 (2007).
  18. V. B. Svetovoy, P. J. van Zwol, and J. Chevrier, Plasmon enhanced near-field radiative heat transfer for graphene covered dielectrics, Phys. Rev. B 85, 155418 (2012).
  19. M. Jablan, H. Buljan, and M. Soljačić, Plasmonics in graphene at infrared frequencies, Phys. Rev. B 80, 245435 (2009).
  20. O. Ilic, M. Jablan, J. D. Joannopoulos, I. Celanović, H. Buljan, and M. Soljačić, Near-field thermal radiation transfer controlled by plasmons in graphene, Phys. Rev. B 85, 155422 (2012).
  21. P. J. van Zwol, S. Thiele, C. Berger, W. A. de Heer, and J. Chevrier, Nanoscale radiative heat flow due to surface plasmons in graphene and doped silicon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 264301 (2012).
  22. X. Li, H. Zhu, K. Wang, A. Cao, J. Wei, C. Li, Y. Jia, Z. Li, X. Li, and D. Wu, Graphene-on-silicon Schottky junction solar cells, Adv. Mater. 22, 2743 (2010).
  23. Y. Ye and L. Dai, Graphene-based Schottky junction solar cells, J. Mater. Chem. 22, 24224 (2012).
  24. X. Miao, S. Tongay, M. K. Petterson, K. Berke, A. G. Rinzler, B. R. Appleton, and A. F. Hebard, High efficiency graphene solar cells by chemical doping, Nano Lett. 12, 2745 (2012).
  25. X. Wang, Z. Cheng, K. Xu, H.-K. Tsang, and J.-B. Xu, High-responsivity graphene/silicon-heterostructure waveguide photodetectors, Nat. Photonics 7, 888 (2013).
  26. O. Ilic, M. Jablan, J. D. Joannopoulos, I. Celanovic, and M. Soljačić, Overcoming the black body limit in plasmonic and graphene near-field thermophotovoltaic systems, Opt. Express 20, A366 (2012).
  27. R. Messina and P. Ben-Abdallah, Graphene-based photovoltaic cells for near-field thermal energy conversion, Sci. Rep. 3, 1383 (2013).
  28. R. Yan, Q. Zhang, W. Li, I. Calizo, T. Shen, C. A. Richter, A. R. Hight-Walker, X. Liang, A. Seabaugh, D. Jena, H. G. Xing, D. J. Gundlach, and N. V. Nguyen, Determination of graphene work function and graphene-insulator-semiconductor band alignment by internal photoemission spectroscopy, Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 022105 (2012).
  29. H. K. Jeong, K.-J. Kim, S. M. Kim, and Y. H. Lee, Modification of the electronic structures of graphene by viologen, Chem. Phys. Lett. 498, 168 (2010).
  30. Y. Yi, W. M. Choi, Y. H. Kim, J. W. Kim, and S. J. Kang, Effective work function lowering of multilayer graphene films by subnanometer thick AlOx overlayers, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 013505 (2011).
  31. Y. Shi, K. K. Kim, A. Reina, M. Hofmann, L.-J. Li, and J. Kong, Work function engineering of graphene electrode via chemical doping, ACS Nano 4, 2689 (2010).
  32. G. Gómez-Santos, Thermal van der Waals interaction between graphene layers, Phys. Rev. B 80, 245424 (2009).
  33. V. B. Svetovoy, Z. Moktadir, M. C. Elwenspoek, and H. Mizuta, Tailoring the thermal Casimir force with graphene, Europhys. Lett. 96, 14006 (2011).
  34. P. Würfel, The chemical potential of radiation, J. Phys. C 15, 3967 (1982).
  35. A. Luque and A. Martí, in Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering, edited by A. Luque and S. Hegedus (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2003).
  36. A. Narayanaswamy and G. Chen, Surface modes for near field thermophotovoltaics, Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 3544 (2003).
  37. K. Park, S. Basu, W. P. King, and Z. M. Zhang, Performance analysis of near-field thermophotovoltaic devices considering absorption distribution, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 109, 305 (2008).
  38. M. Francoeur, R. Vaillon, and M. P. Mengüç, Thermal impacts on the performance of nanoscale-gap thermophotovoltaic power generators, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers. 26, 686 (2011).
  39. S. Shen, A. Mavrokefalos, P. Sambegoro, and G. Chen, Nanoscale thermal radiation between two gold surfaces, Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 233114 (2012).
  40. J. Shi, P. Li, B. Liu, and S. Shen, Tuning near field radiation by doped silicon, Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 183114 (2013).
  41. R. S. Ottens, V. Quetschke, S. Wise, A. A. Alemi, R. Lundock, G. Mueller, D. H. Reitze, D. B. Tanner, and B. F. Whiting, Near-field radiative heat transfer between macroscopic planar surfaces, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 014301 (2011).
  42. T. Kralik, P. Hanzelka, M. Zobac, V. Musilova, T. Fort, and M. Horak, Strong near-field enhancement of radiative heat transfer between metallic surfaces, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 224302 (2012).
  43. M. B. Syed Nawazuddin, Ph.D. thesis, University of Twente, 2013.
  44. D. N. Woolf, Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 2013.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Applied 2, 034006– Published 11 September, 2014
  • Received 20 February 2014

© 2014 American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation