This work provides the design methodology of a radioisotope thermophotovoltaic system (RTPV) using spectral control for space missions. The focus is on the feasibility of a practical system by using two-dimensional micropatterned photonic crystal emitters, selecting the proper thermophotovoltaic cell and insulation material to exclude material incompatibilities, to optimize the system efficiency by impedance matching and to design a radiator with minimum mass. In the last section, a design example is presented based on the tested indium gallium arsenide antimonide (InGaAsSb) cells. It is shown computationally that, in using the experimentally tested InGaAsSb cells, the RTPV generator is expected to reach an efficiency of 8.6% and a specific power of $10.1 W / kg$ with advanced radiators. Using the more efficient InGaAs cells, the system can expect to triple the figure of merits of the radioisotope thermoelectric generator, promising to reach $\sim 18 %$ and $21 W / kg$ , respectively. With a high performance device, the results of this work can lead to a functional prototype for further research focusing on manufacturability and reliability.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies under contract number W911NF-07-D0004, the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology Collaborative Technology Alliance contract 892730, and the Solid-State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center DE-SC0001299. This work was also partially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under grants 2016YFA0302300 and 2016YFA0200400, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant 61306105.

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Received7 April 2019
Accepted29 January 2020
Published online24 February 2020

Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic Generator Design Methods and Performance Estimates for Space Missions

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