Scalable Near-Field Thermophotovoltaic for Heat-to-Electricity recycling using detachable GeSn membranes

近场热光电技术(NFTPV)承诺在便携式设备中以前所未有的效率将热能转化为电能。这种便携式转化器可以回收加拿大(例如石油生产)和魁北克(例如铝)工业部门以及运输中的大量废热，而不会产生额外的温室气体排放。这项技术仍处于初级阶段，只有少数几个实验演示都实现了低转换效率，或者在仍然不适合热回收的温度下运行。尽管有如此巨大的潜力，NFTPV的实验进展相对缓慢，可以说是因为缺乏真正的多学科方法。为了使应用可扩展，电池不应包含在III-V组低带隙电池中通常存在的剧毒元素(例如，亚砷化物)。稀释型锗锡光伏电池似乎是最有希望满足这些标准的候选电池。该项目汇集了谢尔布鲁克大学麦吉尔分校和渥太华大学的独特互补专业知识，以开发可扩展的NFTPV器件，该器件采用创新工艺将功能性GeSn膜器件从厚Ge衬底上分离出来。

Near-field thermophotovoltaics (NFTPV) promises the conversion of heat to electricity in portable devices with unprecedented efficiency. Such portable converters could recycle the enormous amounts of waste heat in the Canadian (e.g., oil production) and Quebec (e.g., aluminum) industrial sectors and in transport without additional greenhouse gas emissions. This technology is still in its infancy, with only a handful of experimental demonstrations that all achieved low conversion efficiencies or operation at temperatures that are still impractical for heat recycling. Despite such tremendous potential, experimental progress on NFTPV has been relatively slow, arguably from the lack of a truly multidisciplinary approach. For the application to be scalable, the cell should not comprise the highly toxic elements (e.g., Arsenide) that are typically found in group III-V low bandgap cells. Thinned-down germanium Tin PV cells appear as the most promising candidate for fulfilling these criteria. This project brings together unique complementary expertise from the University of Sherbrooke, McGill, and the University of Ottawa to develop a scalable NFTPV device using an innovative process for the detachment of functional GeSn thin film devices from thick Ge substrate.