Effect of illlumination on thermionic emission from microfabricated silicon carbide structures

Author

Lee, J.-H. ; Bargatin, I. ; Provine, J. ; Liu, F. ; Seo, M.-K. ; Maboudian, R. ; Brongersma, M.L. ; Melosh, N.A. ; Shen, Z.X. ; Howe, R.T.

Author_Institution

Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

5-9 June 2011

Firstpage

2658

Lastpage

2661

Abstract

Microfabricated thermionic emitters form a crucial part of thermionic energy converters, which could find applications in future concentrated solar thermal power plants. Here we report a new stress-relieved design for p-doped and n-doped silicon carbide (SiC) emitters, measurements of their thermionic emission and work functions at temperatures of up to 2900K, and the effect of optical irradiation on both types of SiC emitters. We also report the first observation of the photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) in a thin-film microfabricated emitter.

Keywords

silicon compounds; thermionic conversion; illlumination; n-doped silicon carbide emitters; optical irradiation; p-doped silicon carbide emitters; solar thermal power plants; stress relieved design; temperature 2900 K; thermionic emission; thermionic energy converters; thin film microfabricated emitter; Heating; Optical variables measurement; Photonics; Silicon carbide; Stimulated emission; Temperature measurement; Thermionic emission; hermionic Energy Conversion; igh-Temperature MEMS; ilicon Carbide; olar Electricity Generation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference (TRANSDUCERS), 2011 16th International

Conference_Location

Beijing

ISSN

Pending

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-0157-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TRANSDUCERS.2011.5969879

Filename

5969879