The Government is funding research into thermovoltaics using gallium antimonide materials.
Lead by Milton Keynes-based Wafer Technology, the £2m project includes Lancaster University and QinetiQ, and is funded by the Technology Strategy Board.
It aims to develop novel low bandgap thermovoltaic devices based on alloys including InAsSb and InGaSbN lattice matched to GaSb substrates.
"The aim here is to develop heterostructures with material bandgaps that maximise absorption of thermal radiation. Current GaSb TPV technology with simple Zn diffusion operates at around 0.7eV whereas InP based devices using mismatched GaInAs absorb over the 0.5-0.6eV range," Wafer Technology spokesman Chris Meadows told EW. "The thermal emitters being considered here require an optimum bandgap of 0.3-0.6eV, so the main proposition of this work is that InAsSb [0.3eV] and GaNSb [0.38eV] will enable high optical efficiency structures to be grown, both of which will be lattice matched to GaSb bulk substrates."
Such cells will absorb significantly broader swathes of the IR spectrum compared with existing devices, more effectively generating electricity from heat sources at temperatures below 1,000ºC.
Wafer Technology's contribution will be to extend its GaSb substrates 100mm in diameter.
Lancaster and QinetiQ will study epitaxial growth of the alloys, and QinetiQ will also fabricate the devices.
Prototype TPV systems will be validated in real industrial processes and environments by two further industrial partners.
Wafer Technology is part of IQE group which operates six wafer processing facilities: two in Cardiff, one in Milton Keynes, two in the US and one in Singapore.