High-Efficiency Radiant Energy Transfer
MIE Associate Professor Yi Zheng, in collaboration with industrial partner Faraday Technology, Inc. in Ohio, was awarded a $250K DARPA SBIR grant for “Near-field thermophotovoltaic system with nanostructured absorber/emitter for high-efficiency radiant energy transfer.”
The team will develop a thermophotovoltaic system for high-efficiency to convert the radiant energy (light and heat) directly into electrical energy without any mass transfer process. The conventional energy conversion and storage platforms, such as battery, fuel cell, turbine, or an internal combustion engine, convert chemical energy into electrical energy and achieve high energy density and power density through mass transfer between the electrodes. Therefore, the mass transfer from chemical sources, including ions, liquid, gaseous fuels, or byproducts, from/to the energy conversion devices limits their power output. As an alternative, radiant energy conversion and storage platforms, such as solid-state optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices, thermoelectric generators, can absorb photons/phonons and convert absorbed energy into electrical energy via secondary emission, which eliminates the mass transfer process-induced power output limitation. The proposed technology will use ultra-black coatings as a broadband absorber to absorb radiant energy and convert the absorbed energy directly into electrical energy via near-field spectrally selective thermal emission to a thermophotovoltaic cell. The technology will leverage the advantages of both photovoltaic and photothermal approaches, and generate high-efficient radiant energy conversion and storage platforms.