Unidirectional radiative heat transfer with a spectrally selective planar absorber/emitter for high-efficiency solar thermophotovoltaic systems

A high-efficiency solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) system has been demonstrated using spectrally selective planar absorber/emitter systems and a GaSb TPV cell. In this study, a novel approach for designing the STPV system based on the efficiency of unidirectional radiative heat transfer has been introduced. To achieve high extraction and photovoltaic conversion efficiencies, the spectrally selective absorber/emitter based on a coherent perfect absorber composed of a thin molybdenum layer sandwiched between hafnium layers was applied. The extraction efficiency was further investigated with respect to the absorber/emitter area ratio. The experimental efficiency of STPV reached 5.1% with the area ratio of 2.3.