<p>Chemical cells discharge in a relatively short time, limiting their applications in autonomous devices.&nbsp;&nbsp;WBG semiconductors are found to be useful in direct conversion of beta kinetic energy into electric current for low-power radioisotope sources enabling persistent communications and sensing.&nbsp;&nbsp;Semiconductors with wider band gaps than silicon (1.1 eV), have been found to be more radiation tolerant. Electron beam induced currents (EBIC) stimulated the semiconductor.&nbsp;&nbsp;The EBIC system utilizing 3-16 kV electron beam and 1.2 nA simulated 200mCi tritium radioisotope activity levels.&nbsp;&nbsp;The betavoltaic (BV) response from InGaP (1.86 eV) was measured showing energy conversion efficiency of 9%.&nbsp;&nbsp;The measured results compare well to Monte-Carlo models of energy deposition from nuclear scattering in these materials.&nbsp;&nbsp;Tritium loaded nitroxide-gel has been deposited on InGaP creating a novel hybrid PV-BV energy generator.&nbsp;</p><p>The betavoltaic process is similar to photovoltaic energy conversion, but in place of converting&nbsp;photon (sun) to electrical power, it uses beta-emitting isotopes to convert nuclear power to&nbsp;electrical power in a semi-conductor. The beta particles emitted by the isotopes have very high&nbsp;energy (1-100 keV) compared to optical photons (&lt;6 eV) in order to create electron-hole pairs in semi-conductors.&nbsp;A betavoltaic device is made of a layer of beta-emitting isotope placed adjacent to asemiconductor p-n junction generally. Betavoltaic power sources have high energy density, long&nbsp;life span, feature durability in extreme environments such as space applications, under water,&nbsp;battle fields where the need to change batteries is inconvenient and where the use of chemical&nbsp;batteries is limited.&nbsp;</p>

Ingap Based Hybrid Pv-Bv Device Characterization

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IDETC-CIE/IDETC-CIE2021/volume/85369

ASME 2021 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE2021)

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