Design of Spectral Beamsplitter for Hybrid Thermoelectic / Photovoltaic Concentrated Solar Energy Devices
Translated title
Term
4. term (FYS10)
Education
Publication year
2016
Submitted on
2016-06-08
Pages
109
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to optimize the design of a beamsplitter for a hybrid system consisting of a solar cell and a thermoelectric element. The beamsplitter consists of more than 100 alternating layers of Si3N4 and SiO2 deposited on glass with an outer layer of MgF2, and the thicknesses of all these layers are optimized in order to maximize the efficiency of the hybrid system. Thus the thesis considers the optimization of a complicated function of more than 100 variables. Two equivalent transfer matrix methods are applied to calculate the transmittance, reflectance, and absorbance through the beamsplitter, and for a microcrystalline and an amorphous solar cell the efficiency of the hybrid system is calculated and optimal thicknesses for the layers are found. Due to higher order band gaps it is found impossible to construct a low-wavelength-pass beamsplitter, but good results are obtained for a high-wavelength-pass beamsplitter. The efficiency of the microcrystalline solar cell is higher than the amorphous, but the relative improvement in efficiency by using the hybrid system with a high-wavelength-pass beamsplitter is almost twice as large for the amorphous.
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