Study of a thermophotovoltaic filter based on a multilayer structure thru one-dimensional photonic crystals

Today one of the major challenges is to find alternatives to exhaustible and polluting fossil fuels. The thermophotovoltaic system offers interesting energy perspectives in this direction.The system converts radiant heat directly into electrical energy. A major difference from normal photovoltaic solar energy is that the emitted energy that can not be used by the cell can in principle be recycled back to the source which allows for a transmission efficiency of the optimal light to the cell. However the low efficiency and power values of this conversion device are largely due to the mismatch between the wavelengths contained in the emission spectrum of the infrared heat source and the wavelengths contained in the Absorption Spectrum of the cell. The interest in this device is to optimize its conversion efficiency from a spectral filter. The aim of this work is to study a thermophotovoltaic filter based on a multilayer structure through one-dimensional photonic crystals. We present the principles of thermal radiation and Maxwell''s equations which describe the classical theory of electromagnetic waves in a homogeneous and isotropic medium defined by its refractive index.