Open AccessUltra-broadband solar absorbers for high-efficiency thermophotovoltaics
Author(s) -
Jinchuan Zhou,
Zhengqi Liu,
Guiqiang Liu,
Pingping Pan,
Xiaoshan Liu,
Chaojun Tang,
Junqiao Wang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.411918
Subject(s) - thermophotovoltaic , materials science , solar energy , optics , optoelectronics , radiance , nanomanufacturing , thermal , photovoltaic system , transmittance , nanotechnology , physics , meteorology , ecology , common emitter , biology
Metamaterial absorbers have attracted great attention over the past few years and exhibited a promising prospect in solar energy harvesting and solar thermophotovoltaics (STPVs). In this work, we introduce a solar absorber scheme, which enables efficient solar irradiance harvesting, superb thermal robustness and high solar thermal energy conversion for STPV systems. The optimum structure demonstrates an average absorbance of 97.85% at the spectral region from 200 nm to 2980 nm, indicating the near-unity absorption in the main energy range of the solar radiance. The solar-thermal conversion efficiencies surpassing 90% are achieved over an ultra-wide temperature range (100-800 °C). Meanwhile, the analysis indicates that this metamaterial has strong tolerance for fabrication errors. By utilizing the simple two-dimensional (2D) titanium (Ti) gratings, this design is able to get beyond the limit of costly and sophisticated nanomanufacturing techniques. These impressive features can hold the system with wide applications in metamaterial and other optoelectronic devices.