A System Analysis of Micron-Gap Thermophotovoltaic Systems Enhanced by Nanowires

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of micron-gap thermophotovoltaic systems enhanced with tungsten nanowires, demonstrating their potential for highly efficient, frequency-selective heat-to-electricity conversion with practical cooling considerations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nanowire-enhanced thermophotovoltaic system that achieves super-Planckian radiative heat transfer with practical efficiency improvements.

Findings

Frequency-selective super-Planckian spectrum achieved

High potential for efficient electricity generation

Practical cooling methods evaluated

Abstract

We introduce new micron-gap thermophotovoltaic systems enhanced by tungsten nanowires. We theoretically show that these systems allow the frequency-selective super-Planckian spectrum of radiative heat transfer that promises a very efficient generation of electricity. Our system analysis covers practical aspects such as output power per unit area and efficiency of the tap water cooling.