Suppressing sub-bandgap phonon-polariton heat transfer in near-field thermophotovoltaic devices for waste heat recovery

We consider a near-field thermophotovoltaic device with metal as the emitter and semiconductor as the photovoltaic cell. We show that when the cell is a III-V semiconductor, such as GaSb, parasitic phonon-polariton heat transfer reduces efficiency in the near-field regime, especially when the temperature of the emitter is not high enough. We further propose ways to avoid the phonon-polariton heat transfer by replacing the III-V semiconductor with a non-polar semiconductor such as Ge. Our work provides practical guidance on the design of near-field thermophotovoltaic systems for efficient harvesting of low-quality waste heat.

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