Near-Field Electroluminescent Refrigeration System Consisting of Two Graphene Schottky Diodes

Abstract

Abstract It has been shown that the performance of a thermal radiative device, such as a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) and an electroluminescent (EL) refrigerator, can be significantly enhanced when the vacuum gap between a reservoir and a semiconductor diode becomes nanoscale. Recently, several studies have reported the integration of a TPV and a light emitting diode (LED) in one near-field thermal radiative device to improve the operation efficiency. However, surface polaritons were hardly exploited in previous research because bare semiconductor diodes were used. In this paper, we propose a TPV-LED integrated near-field EL refrigeration system consisting of two graphene-semiconductor Schottky diodes. A substantial refrigeration rate (101.9 kW/m2) is achieved owing to the coupling of surface plasmon-phonon polaritons excited by a symmetric configuration of graphene-polar materials. Moreover, the cooling coefficient of performance (COP) of the system can be enhanced up to 2.65 times by recycling the electrical power generated in the TPV cell. The cooling performance is further investigated in relation to design parameters, namely the doping concentration of Si and insulator thickness.