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A new approach is introduced to significantly improve the performance ofthermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems by using low-dimensional thermal emitters andphotovoltaic (PV) cells. By reducing the thickness of both the emitter and thePV cell, strong spectral selectivity in both thermal emission and absorptioncan be achieved by confining photons in trapped waveguide modes inside thethin-films that act as thermal analogs to quantum wells. Simultaneously,photo-excited carriers travel shorter distances across the thin-films reducingbulk recombination losses resulting in a lower saturation current in the PVcell. We predict a TPV efficiency enhancement with near-field coupling betweenthe thermal emitter and the PV cell of up to 38.7% using a germanium (Ge)emitter at 1000 K and a gallium antimonide (GaSb) cell with optimizedthicknesses separated by 100 nm. Even in the far-field limit, the efficiency ispredicted to reach 31.5%, which is an order of magnitude higher than theShockley Queisser limit of 1.6% for a bulk GaSb cell and a blackbody emitter at1000 K. The proposed design approach does not require nanoscale patterning ofthe emitter and PV cell surfaces, but instead offers a simple low-cost solutionto improve the performance of a thermophotovoltaic system.

Thin-film 'Thermal Well' Emitters and Absorbers for High-Efficiency Thermophotovoltaics