Proof-of-Concept Proposal for the Thermal DIODE
Abstract
According to initially submitted description of the proposed thermal diode for converting heat to electricity, proof of concept can be subdivided into the following three parts: 1. Proving that a semiconductor emitting layer compares favorably in terms of carriers injection with metal emitters both in the thermoelectric or Schottky mode. 2. Verifying limits of diffusive transport in the semiconductor gap in terms of recombination at elevated temperatures. 3. Proving compensation layer capability of blocking thermoelectric back current from the collector. At this point, we have proved the compensation layer principle and that the recombination in lnSb at elevated temperatures does not pose a serious problem. We also proved that semiconductor layer improves efficiency by a factor of four for the same material compared to thermoelectric regime. So far, predictions of the Numerical model developed earlier are sound. We tested energy converters that yielded results competitive with any known thermoelectrics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 25, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA393495
Entities
People
- Peter Hagelstein
- Yan Kucherov