Physical basis of power conversion of energy fluctuations

An examination of the physics of the reversible-energy-fluctuations (REF) converter shows that the addition of the energy-transducing first layer and the thermal-barrier second layer for the REF converter enables the REF circuit to control the voltage levels of the input energy transferred to the diodes in the third layer. This enables the maximum efficiency of the Carnot cycle to be approached both for power conversion and for reversible operations as a heat pump or refrigerator. When the energy from the first layer is transferred to the third layer in the near field, the input energy to the rectifying layer can be increased by several orders of magnitude over the maximum input energy that can be transferred by the radiation field and can be rectified by smaller discrete diodes or thinner rectifying films than can be used in solar cells. Power-conversion performance equations for quantum-effect diodes in a REF circuit show a power-conversion efficiency of 82% for one model. Thin-film designs are given without discrete components with a 1-kW/${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ output power. It is shown that the theoretical potential for maximum efficiency and at temperatures ranging from cryogenic to incandescent, can, in principle, be extended to detecting minimum signal powers and counting single photons in the quantum limit. It is also shown that, in principle, for the conversion of solar energy, the limiting efficiency of 93% for this irreversible thermodynamic cycle can be approached using crystal-lattice temperatures for the first layer much lower than the electron temperature and, thereby, minimizing the thermal gradient across the thermal barrier.