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Photon-enhanced thermionic emission solar cells based on three dimensional graphene aerogel cathode materials

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Abstract

Photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) solar cells are a new type of solar energy conversion device combining the advantages of photovoltaic and thermionic effects. In this paper, three dimensional (3D) graphene aerogel (GA) doped with nitrogen (N) atoms and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were experimentally used as cathode materials to construct reflection-type PETE solar cells. The cathode materials were prepared by the hydrothermal method in combination with freeze-drying process. The results show that CNTs are randomly distributed in graphene sheets and N atoms are bonded with C atoms, forming a 3D layered structure. Due to the heat and light trappings of the cathode, N-CNTs/GA-based PETE solar cell exhibits the good PETE effect, which short-circuit current is about 11 times higher than that of GA-based device.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Key Laboratory of High Performance Structural Materials and Thermo-surface Processing (Guangxi University), Education Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Funding

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Non-ferrous Metals and Materials, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resources, Environment and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China

    Yanpeng Xu, Shenghao Luo, Huan he, Xiaoming Shen & Yuechun Fu

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  1. Yanpeng Xu
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  2. Shenghao Luo
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  3. Huan he
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  4. Xiaoming Shen
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  5. Yuechun Fu
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Contributions

YX: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation & writing original draft. SL: investigation, validation & data curation. HH: conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology & project administration. XS: software, supervision, validation & visualization. YF: investigation, methodology, resources, supervision, validation, visualization, roles/writing—original draft, writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Yuechun Fu.

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Xu, Y., Luo, S., he, H. et al. Photon-enhanced thermionic emission solar cells based on three dimensional graphene aerogel cathode materials. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1122 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10508-5

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