Simulation and optimization of emitter thickness for indium arsenide-based thermophotovoltaic cell

Abstract

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices are known for capturing infrared radiation from a high temperature heat source and converting them into electricity. While InAs TPV cells have the ability to harvest radiation heat from temperature source below 1000 K, the best-reported homojunction InAs efficiency is only 0.6 % under 1000 K. This is due to the lack of an optimize structure for TPV application. This research work investigates on optimizing the emitter thickness for Indium Arsenide (InAs) based TPV cells. The electrical characteristics of the InAs TPV cell were simulated using the SILVACO TCAD software. The thickness of p-type emitter ranging from 0.1 to 2.3\ \boldsymbol{\mu} \mathbf{m} were investigated. As the emitter thickness increases, the open circuit voltage (\boldsymbol{V-{oc}}) increases, while the short-circuit current density (\boldsymbol{J-{sc}}) decreases. With the increase rate of \boldsymbol{V-{oc}} which is faster than the decreasing rate of \boldsymbol{J-{sc}}, the maximum power efficiency was achieved at an optimum thickness of 1.5\ \boldsymbol{\mu} \mathbf{m}. At 800 °C blackbody temperature, the highest power efficiency was acquired as 0.61 % at the optimum emitter thickness. © 2019 IEEE.