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object toward which it radiates. ‘We were thinking, what if
Power through cooling A standard silicon photovoltaic cell operates by absorbing photons from solar radiation throughout the day. These absorbed photons create electron−hole pairs across the semiconductor bandgap and establish a working voltage. The researchers’ proposed thermoradiative cell, which also employs concepts from the advancing field of radiative cooling, is instead designed to absorb heat from a source and then emit thermal radiation in the infrared. In doing this, as electron−hole pairs recombine across the semiconductor
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bandgap, a negative voltage is established. ‘In these new devices, light is
instead emitted and the current and voltage go in the opposite direction, but you still generate power,’ said Munday. ‘You have to use different materials, but the physics is the same.’ Such thermoradiative cells
have previously been explored as an option for capturing waste heat from industrial sources and turning it into power, for example from an engine’s exhaust pipe or a generator’s cooling towers. The cell simply needs to be at a higher temperature than the
we took one of these devices and put it in a warm area and pointed it at the sky?’ said Munday. In this way, the earth, at a temperature of about 300K, could act as the heat source, while the darkness of space, at 3K, would act as a heat sink, facilitating the transfer of energy required to generate a voltage.
Coupled with the cosmos In order for the proposed thermoradiative cells to work, they must effectively be able to ‘see’ through the earth’s atmosphere and be optically coupled with deep space, enabling them to transmit heat
and Degradation Testing, Photochemistry and Accelerated Age Testing. Contact our experienced
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“We were thinking, what if we took one of these devices and put it in a warm area and pointed it at the sky?”
energy there which has first been absorbed from the earth. The thermoradiative cell must
therefore emit thermal radiation at a wavelength that can pass through the atmosphere without being absorbed. Such wavelengths fall within a region of the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum known as the ‘atmospheric transparency window’, which
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