Efficiency Enhancement of GaAs Thermophotovoltaic Cells System using Integrated TiO2/SiO2 1D Photonic Crystal Distributed Bragg Reflectors

Abstract

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems rely on spectrally selective reflectors to enhance conversion efficiency by maximizing photon flux above the photovoltaic bandgap while suppressing sub-bandgaps thermal losses. This work presents a numerical analysis and simulation of SiO2/TiO2 multilayer photonic crystal Distributed Bragg’s Reflectors (DBRs) tailored to the GaAs bandgap (≈ 872 nm). Transfer Matrix Method (TMM) was applied to investigate optical properties of the structure with layer’s thickness, number of periods, and refractive index contrast. Investigation demonstrate that optimized multilayer design exhibit narrowband reflection peaks centered around 800 – 1000 nm (≈ 200 nm), closely matched to the GaAs photovoltaic cutoff wavelength, with reflectivity exceeding 0.99. Beyond 1000 nm, reflectivity is strongly suppressed, minimizing energy reflections associated with unusable infrared photons. The stability analysis with angular and polarization suggests the robust performance over a wide range of angle of incidences, which are critical requirement for practical and efficient TPV operations. The numerical and simulation findings highlight the potential of SiO2/TiO2 1D photonic crystal thermally stable, tunable selective reflectors, offering a viable pathway for efficiency enhancement in GaAs-based TPV systems.

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