Defect engineering of diamond cathodes for high temperature solar cells

Author

Bellucci, A. ; Calvani, P. ; Girolami, M. ; Trucchi, D.M.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Struct. of Matter, Monterotondo Scalo, Italy

fYear

2015

fDate

10-13 June 2015

Firstpage

1616

Lastpage

1619

Abstract

A cathode structure for photon-enhanced thermionic emission was designed for high temperature energy conversion in solar concentrating systems. Surface-hydrogenated diamond is one of the few semiconductors to show negative electron affinity and a work function as low as 1.7 eV if nitrogen-doped, that is connected to a significant thermionic emission at moderate temperatures (up to 800 °C). But diamond is transparent to solar radiation, consequently advanced techniques for preparing an efficient sunlight absorbing diamond are discussed.

Keywords

diamond; solar absorber-convertors; solar energy concentrators; thermionic cathodes; thermionic emission; cathode structure; high temperature energy conversion; negative electron affinity; photon-enhanced thermionic emission; solar concentrating systems; sunlight absorbing diamond; surface-hydrogenated diamond; Cathodes; Diamonds; Optical surface waves; Photonic band gap; Surface morphology; Surface texture; Thermionic emission; CVD Diamond; Energy conversion; Photo-emission; Solar concentration; Thermionic emission;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), 2015 IEEE 15th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Rome

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-7992-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EEEIC.2015.7165413

Filename

7165413