Emissive Energy Harvesting: Generating Power at Night

Project Description

The School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) is widely regarded as the one of the leading Photovoltaics research hubs in the world. Building on its world-leading research, the school attracts leading international researchers in the area of photovoltaic, consistently ranked amongst the leaders worldwide in the photovoltaic field through international peer review. It is one of the nine schools within the Faculty of Engineering at University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia and grew out of the Australian Research Council Photovoltaics Centre of Excellence in response to the growing photovoltaic and renewable energy industry.

Radiative cooling is the concept wherein an object on the earth cools byselectively emitting thermal infrared radiation to the cold universe through theatmospheric window (8–13 μm). This requires no power input, and thus has great potential for cooling buildings, vehicles, etc. Through nanophotonic structura lengineering, daytime radiative cooling can achieve temperatures more than 10C below the ambient even in direct sunlight. This project will revolve around two new developments in radiative cooling. The first will be to develop active control overthe otherwise purely passive radiative cooling process through the use of opticalphase change materials. The second will be to combine radiative cooling and thermoelectrics to demonstrate emissive energy harvesting. Emissive energy harvesting generates power at night by taking advantage of the earth’s radiative emission into the coldness of space. Further opportunities in developing thermoradiative diodes for “night time solar” may also be possible.

SPREEs Research Activities

UNSW has been responsible for developing the most successfully commercialised new photovoltaic technology internationally. Most of the solar cell technology that dominates the market (in particular the ‘PERC’ design) was invented and developed here. Currently there are a wide range of activities in the school spanning novel processing techniques for improved performance of commercial silicon cells, advanced characterisation techniques, integrating silicon with novel materials for the development of multi-junction solar cells, as well as advanced concepts for totally new approaches to photovoltaic and other energy producing device designs.

Requirements

Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics or Materials Science or similar. Overall GPA must be at least 80% or equivalent.

Masters Degree: Priority will be given for those who graduated from a Masters by research program, with a strong semiconductor physics emphasis, can be theoretical or experimental focused. Overall GPA must be at least 80% or equivalent.

Prior research experience is considered key for competitive scholarships for international students.

Please contact Dr Michael Nielsen (michael.nielsen@unsw.edu.au) for further information or visit the group website https://www.aos-nielsen-group.com/. For your application please also attach the following documents: CV, academic transcript, and your motivation for doctoral studies. Please include how you feel your background potential aligns with the project.