Mid-Infrared Thermal Radiation Harvesting using Uncooled Narrow Bandgap GeSn Thermophotovoltaic cell

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first experimental GeSn thermophotovoltaic cells operating in the mid-infrared range, showing promising performance and potential for scalable, low-cost energy harvesting applications.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental realization of GeSn MWIR TPV diodes, benchmarking their performance against commercial devices and modeling their intrinsic potential.

Findings

Peak responsivity of ~0.2 A/W at 1.7 μm

Output power of ~0.41 mW/cm² under illumination

Model predicts power densities over 1 W/cm² with optimization

Abstract

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells are increasingly attractive for applications in industrial waste heat harvesting, aerospace energy management, and compact power generation. Deploying midwave-infrared (MWIR) TPV in practical applications requires narrow-bandgap semiconductors that not only absorb low-energy photons but also integrate with scalable, low-cost platforms. Although high-performance TPV devices have been demonstrated using III-V materials such as InAs, GaSb, and InGaAs(P), their use remains limited by cost and substrate size. With this perspective, narrow bandgap GeSn alloys are a promising alternative that extend group-IV absorption into the MWIR while being silicon-compatible. Although the potential of GeSn TPV cells has been predicted, no experimental demonstration has been reported. Here, proof-of-concept Ge$_{0.91}$Sn$_{0.09}$ p-i-n TPV diodes (1 mm diameter) grown on silicon were fabricated and their performance was benchmarked against commercial InAs and extended-InGaAs devices. Measurements at 300 K under 2.33 $\mu$m laser and $\sim$1500 K SiC Globar illumination revealed peak responsivity of $\sim$ 0.2 A/W at $\sim$ 1.7 $\mu$m, and an output power of $\sim$ 0.41 mW/cm$^2$. These devices show trends comparable to those of the InAs diode under identical conditions, although at reduced absolute levels. To assess the intrinsic performance potential, Poisson-drift-diffusion modeling incorporating experimentally calibrated emitter emissivity predicts power densities exceeding 1 W/cm$^2$ under moderate MWIR thermal illumination, indicating that the present devices operate far below their fundamental limits and are primarily constrained by defect-assisted recombination and transport losses. These results establish GeSn as a scalable, silicon-compatible MWIR TPV platform and highlight a larger performance potential achievable through material and device optimization.