Betavoltaic performance under extreme temperatures

Abstract

Lon gev ity of sen sors and por ta ble de vices is se verely lim ited by tem per a ture, chem i cal in stabil ity, and elec tro lyte leak age is sues as so ci ated with con ven tional elec tro chem i cal bat ter ies. Betavoltaics, which op er ate sim i lar to photo voltaics, can op er ate in a wide tem per a ture range safely with out per ma nent deg ra da tion. Though not a new con cept, which be gan in the 1950's and peaked in the mid 1970's, re search has been min i mal and spo radic un til re cent ad vancements in ul tra-low power elec tron ics and ma te ri al iza tion of low power ap pli ca tions. The tech nol ogy is rap idly ma tur ing, gen er at ing re search, and de vel op ment in in creas ing the beta emit ting source and semi con duc tor ef fi cien cies. This study pres ents an up date on betavoltaic tech nol ogy, re sults from tem per a ture eval u a tion on com mer cially avail able Gen eral Li censed betavoltaic cells, de vel op ment of a hy brid sys tem for la tent and burst power, mod el ing and sim u la tion tech niques and re sults, and cur rent and pro posed re search and de vel op ment. Betavoltaic per for mance was suc cess fully dem on strated for a wide tem per a ture range (-30 °C to 70 °C). Short cir cuit cur rent and open cir cuit volt age were used to com pare elec tri cal perfor mance. Re sults in di cate that the open-cir cuit volt age and max i mum power de creased as tem per a ture in creased due to in creases in the semi con duc tor's in trin sic car rier con cen tra tion.

A study on GaN-based betavoltaic batteries

“…With developments in the field of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMSs), the micro and nano energy requirements in this field have started to increase. Nuclear batteries have become a research hotspot in the field of powering MEMS devices due to their long lifetime, high energy density, insensitivity to climate and temperature, excellent anti-interference ability, small size, light weight, easy miniaturization and integration [9,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19].…”