Radiovoltaics: High-efficiency conversion of ionizing radiation directly to electrical power

Author

Coso, D. ; Segal, J. ; Hasi, J. ; Kenney, C. ; Chu, S. ; Yee, S. ; Majumdar, A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA

fYear

2015

fDate

21-25 June 2015

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

Radiovoltaic devices can directly convert high-energy β-electron or a-particle emissions from radioisotopes to electrical power through the generation and separation of electron hole pairs in semiconductors. By carefully matching length scales involved in the physics of absorbing high-energy electrons in semiconductors and the diffusion lengths of electrons and holes, it is possible to increase the power conversion efficiency. This paper demonstrates a distinct increase in conversion efficiency in p-i-n diodes compared to pn diodes.

Keywords

betavoltaic power sources; p-i-n diodes; electrical power; electron hole pair separation; high-energy electrons; ionizing radiation; p-i-n diodes; power conversion efficiency; radiovoltaic devices; Charge carrier processes; P-i-n diodes; Physics; Power conversion; Radioactive materials; Silicon; Direct energy conversion; Nuclear decay; Semiconductor device design;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS), 2015 Transducers - 2015 18th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Anchorage, AK

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TRANSDUCERS.2015.7180845

Filename

7180845