Materials, Optics, and Thermodynamics of Ultra-high Temperature Thermophotovoltaic Device

Over the past several decades, a number of photovoltaic (PV) technologies have been proposed and advanced to help meet the world's energy demand. Thermophotovoltaics (TPV) uses a photovoltaic solar cell that is aimed at a hot source that is at a temperature which is lower than that of the sun. In principle, the route can be more efficient that traditional solar PV but is limited by both the operating bandgap of the solar cell (typically low bandgap materials are used) and the temperature and spectrum of the hot body emitter. In this talk, I will describe our recent work using ultra-high melting point materials for the emitter that can enable high efficiency TPV through the design of custom emitters that can operate at temperatures above 1500C.