Semiconductor-based radiant cooling in space environments
Abstract
Noise suppression in space infrared imaging applications requires sensors to be cooled to cryogenic temperatures. No current technology, whether mechanical or thermoelectric, fulfills all requirements of an ideal cryocooler. Semiconductor optical refrigeration is a promising technology that meets all ideal requirements of spaceborne cryocoolers. As such, it has the potential to supplant existing cooling technologies provided that a key bottleneck is overcome, namely, the implementation of a semiconductor as the cooling medium. Condensed phase optical cooling has already been demonstrated using rare earth-doped glasses and crystals. In the approach, low energy light removes heat from the solid via anti-Stokes (up-converted) photoluminescence at higher energies. Unfortunately, preventing rare earth systems from cooling below 80 K is the loss of optical cooling transitions due to thermal depopulation of involved atomic states. Semiconductors, by contrast, possess cooling floors as low as 10 K due to populated valence bands at all temperatures. This motivates efforts to directly cool semiconductors using light.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2025
- Source ID
- FA95502410668
Entities
People
- Masaru Kuno
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Notre Dame