Enhanced heat-electric conversion via photonic-assisted radiative cooling

In this paper, an inorganic polymer composite film is proposed as an effective radiative cooling device. The inherent absorption is enhanced by choosing an appropriately sized SiO₂ microsphere with a diameter of 6 µm. The overall absorption at the transparent window of the atmosphere is higher than 90%, as the concentration of SiO₂–PMMA composite is 35 wt%. As a result, an effective radiative device is made by a spin coating process. Moreover, the device is stacked on the cold side of a thermoelectric generator chip. It is found that the temperature gradient can be increased via the effective radiative cooling process. An enhanced Seebeck effect is observed, and the corresponding output current can be enhanced 1.67-fold via the photonic-assisted radiative cooling.