Full-spectrum selective thin film based photonic cooler for solar cells of space solar power station

Abstract In this paper, full-spectrum selective thin film based photonic cooler is proposed for passively cooling solar cells of the space solar power station via orb-shape membrane energy gathering array concept (SSPS-OMEGA). The photonic cooler is designed and made of periodic one-dimensional photonic crystal that can reflect solar radiation selectively and enhance heat radiation to the outer space while maintaining its solar transmission in photovoltaic (PV) conversion band (0.4–1.6 μm). The opto-thermo-electrical model is established to evaluate the cooling effects of photonic cooler on solar cells under different incident angles and concentration ratios. The results demonstrate that designed photonic cooler is insensitive with the incident angle, and can effectively reduce the temperature of solar cells by 30 °C at least, indicating a 1.4% increase in solar cells efficiency and 93 MW increase in power output of a 2 GW SSPS-OMEGA system. The photonic cooler also exhibits excellent temperature control characteristic in sandwich module. Results indicate that the proposed photonic approach could be applied to advance the space thermal control technology and exploit the space solar power.