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Exploratory study of betavoltaic battery using ZnO as the energy converting material

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Abstract

Third-generation-semiconductor zinc oxide is utilized as an energy converting material in a betavoltaic battery, where 0.06 Ci 63Ni and 8 Ci 147Pm are used as the beta sources. Based on a Monte Carlo simulation, the full scales of the devices are derived as 17 and 118 μm, respectively, for both sources. The influences of semiconductor doping concentrations on the electrical properties of the devices are analyzed. For a typical doping concentration NA= 1017 cm−3, ND= 1016 cm−3, the conversion efficiencies are 7.177% and 1.658%, respectively, using 63Ni and 147Pm sources. The calculation results of energy deposition in materials for the two sources show that the doping concentrations drop to 1 × 1013–5×1014 cm−3 and 1 × 1012–5×1013, and accordingly, the energy conversion efficiencies rise to 14.212% and 18.359%, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Xiao-Yi Li, Jing-Bin Lu, Yu-Min Liu, Xu Xu, Rui He & Ren-Zhou Zheng

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  1. Xiao-Yi Li
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  2. Jing-Bin Lu
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  3. Yu-Min Liu
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  4. Xu Xu
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  5. Rui He
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  6. Ren-Zhou Zheng
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Correspondence to Jing-Bin Lu.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Major Scientific Instruments and Equipment Development Projects (No. 2012YQ240121) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11075064).

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Li, XY., Lu, JB., Liu, YM. et al. Exploratory study of betavoltaic battery using ZnO as the energy converting material. NUCL SCI TECH 30, 60 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-019-0577-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-019-0577-3

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