Photon-enhanced thermionic emission for solar concentrator systems.

Negative space charge effects in photon-enhanced thermionic emission solar converters

Solar energy conversion with photon-enhanced thermionic emission

Photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) converts sunlight to electricity with the combined photonic and thermal excitation of charge carriers in a semiconductor, leading to electron emission over a vacuum gap. Theoretical analyses predict conversion efficiency that can match, or even exceed, the efficiency of traditional solar thermal and photovoltaic converters. Several materials have been ...

Limit of efficiency for photon-enhanced thermionic emission vs. photovoltaic and thermal conversion

Conversion of sunlight by photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) combines a photonic process similar to photovoltaic cells, and a thermal process similar to conventional thermionic converters. As a result, the upper limit on the conversion efficiency of PETE devices is not the same as the Shockley– Queisser (SQ) limit that corresponds to the bandgap of the absorbing material, nor to the Car...

Photon trapping and energy transfer in multiple-dye plastic matrices: an efficient solar-energy concentrator.

Experiments are described illustrating enhanced photon trapping and efficient energy transfer in mixed-dye planar solar concentrators containing, for example, Rhodamine 6G and Coumarin 6. These concentrators intercept more of the solar spectrum to give an enhanced photon-flux gain that exceeds the single-dye concentrator. It is also shown that the energy absorbed by the donor dye is transferred...

Minority Carrier Recombination of Ordered Ga0.51In0.49P at High Temperatures

The minority carrier lifetime of high-quality ordered GaInP lattice matched to GaAs and the surface recombination velocity at its interface to AlInP were measured using time-resolved photo-luminescence (TRPL) in the temperature range of 77 500 K. The surface recombination velocity was found to be relatively low (under 500 cm/s) over the measured temperature range. The effective lifetime increas...