Broadband Emitter Based on Multilayer Metasurface for Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities typically leak waste heat into the environment in an unnecessary manner without any kind of planned strategy. As a result, both urban heat islands and global warming steadily get worse over time. Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems have the potential to be used in order to collect waste heat and recover energy in order to address this worldwide problem by producing more electrical energy. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of emitters created using multilayer systems and metamaterials as viable options for TPV cells. The benefits and limitations of Furthermore, this study evaluates and analyzes the emitters' performance in relation to metal, dielectric, and height variations. A thorough analysis and discussion of the structural design's contribution to the improvement of emitter efficiency is also provided. The review's highlighted insights will help focus more attention on creating TPV systems with higher emitter efficiencies in the future. Generally speaking, spectral efficiency rises with temperature, indicating that emitters operating at low temperatures are essential for increasing TPV efficiency. In particular, selective emitters suppress out-of-band radiations to increase efficiency. Overall, a selective metamaterial emitter with a high average emittance over the needed wavelength was conceived and implemented in this work.