Springer Hybrid and Fully Thermoelectric Solar Harvesting: 268 (Springer Series in Materials Science, 268)

This book provides a comprehensive overview on fully thermal and hybrid solar generators based on thermoelectric devices. The book fills a gap in the literature on solar conversion and thermoelectrics, because despite the growing number of papers dealing with the use of thermoelectrics in solar power conversion, no book exists for PV specialists or thermoelectricity experts to enter this field. The book is intended as a primer for scientists or engineers willing to complement their expertise in one of the two fields, and to get an updated, critical review of the state of the art in thermoelectric solar harvesting.  From the Back Cover This book provides a comprehensive overview on fully thermal and hybrid solar generators based on thermoelectric devices. The book fills a gap in the literature on solar conversion and thermoelectrics, because despite the growing number of papers dealing with the use of thermoelectrics in solar power conversion, no book exists for PV specialists or thermoelectricity experts to enter this field. The book is intended as a primer for scientists or engineers willing to complement their expertise in one of the two fields, and to get an updated, critical review of the state of the art in thermoelectric solar harvesting. About the Author Dario Narducci graduated in Chemistry at the University of Milan, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry. From 1988 to 1990 he was Post-Doctoral Fellow at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. In 1990 he re-joined the University of Milan as an Assistant Professor, moving in 1997 to the Department of Materials Science, University of Milano Bicocca, where he became Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in 2000. His research interests have focused on the physical chemistry of solids and materials with a special emphasis on silicon and on transport properties of disordered materials. Since 2008 Narducci has developed an intense research activity on thermoelectricity and on its applications to microharvesting. In 2010 he was appointed Chief Technical Officer and Board Member of a start-up aimed at the development of silicon-based thermoelectric generators. He is currently involved in the ERC NanoThermMA project, led by the University of Warwick; and is coordinating a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship supporting a collaboration with MIT to develop hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric generators. He is currently serving as the president of the Italian Thermoelectric Society and is the treasurer of the European Thermoelectric Society. Author of more than one hundred scientific publications, Narducci also wrote a book on nanotechnology – and filed fifteen patents as well. Peter Bermel is an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His research focuses on improving the performance of photovoltaic, thermophotovoltaic, and nonlinear systems using the principles of nanophotonics. Key enabling techniques for his work include electromagnetic and electronic theory, modeling, simulation, fabrication, and characterization. Dr. Bermel is widely published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, and his work has been a recurring topic in international educational activities, as well as publications geared towards the general public. His work, which has been cited over 4900 times, for an h-index value of 26, includes the analysis and the optimization of the detailed mechanisms of light trapping in thin-film photovoltaics; the fabrication and characterization of 3D inverse opal photonic crystals made from silicon for photovoltaics, and their comparison to theoretical predictions; the explanation of key physical effects influencing selective thermal emitters in order to achieve high performance thermophotovoltaic systems; the design of photon recycling for high-efficiency incandescent lighting; and the study of the characterizing behavior and outcomes for learners in online nanophotonic courses using big data