Laser power converter architectures based on 3C-SiC with efficiencies >80%

Abstract

High power laser transmission technology is based on energy transfer through a monochromatic laser onto a photovoltaic receiver avoiding the limitations of conventional wiring. Current technology, headed by GaAs-based devices, faces two limitations: the intrinsic entropic losses and the degradation at high input power densities due to ohmic losses. Two novel laser power converters focused on overcoming these limitations are proposed. 3C-SiC is used as base material because of its high bandgap (2.36 eV) and its excellent crystallographic properties in order to reduce the entropic losses. Also, the current decreases due to the inherent flux reduction of high energy photons. To minimize ohmic losses, a recently proposed vertical architecture is explored, which can significantly reduce series resistance around two orders of magnitude (≈10−5 Ω cm2). Furthermore, 3C-SiC is also implemented in a conventional horizontal architecture to show the advantage of increasing the energy gap to reduce the ohmic losses. The two laser power converters obtain efficiencies above the state-of-the-art (87.4% at 3000 W cm−2 for the vertical architecture and 81.1% at 100 W cm−2 for the horizontal architecture) Taking this into account, the new devices open a new route for ultrahigh efficiency remote powered systems