Modeling of thermionic converters through self-consistent solution of Vlaslov and Poisson equations

In this work, we propose a strategy to model thermionic energy convertors. The model involves self-consistently solving the Poisson and Vlaslov equations. This approach improves on the existing model which describes the operation of thermionic convertors only in the space-charge limited mode of operation. We show that, by applying appropriate boundary conditions, our model can be used to obtain the output characteristics of thermionic convertors in their entire range of operation. Moreover, additional aspects of thermionic convertors such as back-emission and ion emission from the electrodes can be easily incorporated into this model. The model was applied to calculate the behavior of thermionic convertors and the results are shown to match the analytical solutions in the absence of back-emission from the anode using the Child-Langmuir approach.