Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences (Jul 2015)

ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATIONOFIn1-xGaxAsySb1-yTHERMOPHOTOVOLTAICCELLSUNDERLOWRADIATORTEMPERATURES

  • F. Bouzid,
  • N. Maamri

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4314/jfas.v5i1.7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1
pp. 81 – 95

Abstract

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In this paper,we investigated the heat to electricity conversion efficiency of In1-xGaxAsySb1-yradioisotope thermophotovoltaic (RTPV) converter with x=0.8 and y=0.18, taking account of the photons with energy below the cells bandgap using a comprehensive analytical process. This was done with a computer program designed for this reason, which allowed the computation of the cell performance under a variety of specified incident radiation spectra as well as a variety of material parameters. The results show that for an emissivity value of 0.78, a cell thickness of about 7µm with low front recombination velocity(700cm/s),a conversion efficiency greater than 29% can be obtained for radiator’s temperature of1300°k at ambient temperature. This efficiency will decrease as the cell temperature increase.

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