Supercapacitor like structure for micro-battery and radiation energy harvesting tile

摘要

The usage of hetero-nano-layers to harvest the energy deposited in ionization by the stopping particles and radiation passing through the layers produces very efficient and compact solid-state battery devices. The structure in its simplest forms looks like a planar capacitor made from a plurality of nano-strata composed from minimum 4 components in a repeated periodically. The first external element is the radiation generator that can be a alpha particle emitter such as 239{sup left}Pu, 241{sup left}Am or a beta emitter as 67{sup left}Ga, 3{sup left}T, or gamma source. The first layer from the source has high electronic density generating a shower of knock-on electrons leaving the layer through a thin dielectric leaving it polarized positively. The electron shower is stopped in a second low electronic density conductor nano-layer that polarizes negatively and separated by a low emittance dielectric from the next structure. This structure of conductor dielectric is repeated all along the radiation stopping range, converting almost all the radiation energy into electricity. For 238{sup left}Pu battery it may have a module thickness of 50 microns possible to deliver up to 50 mW/cm{sup}2. In other configurations the super-capacitor like harvesting structure may be used in a multi-radiation energy-harvesting tile for space applications.