The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 07, 2014
Filed:
Oct. 16, 2009
Jared Schwede, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Nicholas Melosh, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Zhixun Shen, Stanford, CA (US);
Jared Schwede, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Nicholas Melosh, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Zhixun Shen, Stanford, CA (US);
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission (PETE) is exploited to provide improved efficiency for radiant energy conversion. A hot (greater than 200° C.) semiconductor cathode is illuminated such that it emits electrons. Because the cathode is hot, significantly more electrons are emitted than would be emitted from a room temperature (or colder) cathode under the same illumination conditions. As a result of this increased electron emission, the energy conversion efficiency can be significantly increased relative to a conventional photovoltaic device. In PETE, the cathode electrons can be (and typically are) thermalized with respect to the cathode. As a result, PETE does not rely on emission of non-thermalized electrons, and is significantly easier to implement than hot-carrier emission approaches.