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Design and theoretical study of a metamaterial absorber-emitter pair matched with a low-bandgap PV cell for an STPV system

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Abstract

The power generation efficiency of conventional photovoltaic (PV) devices is restricted to a low level due to the Shockley-Queisser (SQ) limit. Fortunately, the solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) technology can serve as an alternative to produce electricity efficiently. To further improve the efficiency of the STPV system, a novel absorber-emitter pair based on metamaterials is designed to match the InGaAsSb cells. According to the detailed balance calculation model, the performance analysis of the proposed STPV system is carried out and it achieves the maximum efficiency of 33.26% with the high-temperature effect considered. Besides, the intrinsic absorption and emission mechanisms are revealed through electromagnetic field distributions. The absorber achieves ultrahigh broadband absorption through slowlight mode and the emitter shows narrowband emission excited by the localized surface plasmon resonance. The angle and polarization insensitivity is also investigated, illustrating the excellent performance of the proposed system. The methods and mechanisms explored in this work are of great significance for researchers to understand and design similar structures.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by Ningxia Provincial Key Research and Development Program (No. 2017BY049) and Ningxia Provincial Key Research and Development Program (No. 2018BCE01004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Zhijun Zhou, Biao Zhang, Cancheng Jiang & Haojin Wu

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  1. Zhijun Zhou
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  2. Biao Zhang
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Contributions

ZZ: Conceptualization, Methodology. BZ: Investigation, Software, Writing—original draft. CJ: Supervision, Formal analysis. HW: Writing—review & editing, Supervision, Data curation.

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Correspondence to Cancheng Jiang.

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Zhou, Z., Zhang, B., Jiang, C. et al. Design and theoretical study of a metamaterial absorber-emitter pair matched with a low-bandgap PV cell for an STPV system. Opt Quant Electron 54, 797 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-022-04173-x

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