TY - JOUR TI - Evaluation of a Silicon 90 Sr Betavoltaic Power Source AU - Dixon, Jefferson AU - Rajan, Aravindh AU - Bohlemann, Steven AU - Coso, Dusan AU - Upadhyaya, Ajay D. AU - Rohatgi, Ajeet AU - Chu, Steven AU - Majumdar, Arun AU - Yee, Shannon T2 - Scientific Reports AB - Betavoltaic energy converters (i.e., β-batteries) are attractive power sources because of their potential for high energy densities (>200 MWh/kg) and long duration continuous discharge (>1 year). However, conversion efficiencies have been historically low (<3%). High efficiency devices can be achieved by matching β-radiation transport length scales with the device physics length scales. In this work, the efficiency of c-Si devices using high-energy (>1 MeV) electrons emitted from 90Sr as a power source is investigated. We propose a design for a >10% efficient betavoltaic device, which generates 1 W of power. A Varian Clinac iX is used to simulate the high-energy electrons emitted from 90Sr, and a high efficiency c-Si photovoltaic cell is used as the converter. The measured conversion efficiency is 16%. This relatively high value is attributed to proper length scale matching and the generation of secondary electrons in c-Si by the primary β-particles. DA - 2016/12/01/ PY - 2016 DO - 10.1038/srep38182 DP - www.nature.com VL - 6 IS - 1 SP - 38182 LA - en SN - 2045-2322 UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/srep38182 Y2 - 2021/05/06/21:03:04 KW - Energy Conversion KW - Nuclear ER -