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Intermediate-band-assisted near-field thermophotovoltaic devices with InAs, GaSb, and Si based absorbers

A new scheme of near-field thermophotovoltaic devices is proposed by introducing the intermediate-band absorber. The two-step excitation via the intermediate band provides a large photogenerated current density and maintains a high voltage output for the thermal-electric conversion. Energy dissipation processes in devices are analyzed by using the detailed balance model. Results show that the powers and efficiencies of thermophotovoltaic devices with intermediate bands in appropriate positions are clearly larger than those of the conventional counterparts. Based on the optical properties observed in experiments, three types of absorber materials are compared, which indicates that InAs with low energy bandgap is more suitable as a high-temperature material for photon absorptions than GaSb and Si. Comparing the performance of our model with experiments, we show that the InAs based thermophotovoltaic device allows the enhancement of efficiency over a range of gap sizes. The proposed model may open a new field in the application of thermophotovoltaic devices.