Recent developments in materials technology now make it possible to fabricate nonthermal thin‐film radioisotopic energy converters (REC) with a specific power of 24 W/kg and a 10 year working life at 5 to 10 watts. This creates applications never before possible, such as placing the power supply directly on integrated circuit chips. The efficiency of the REC is about 25% which is two to three times greater than the 6 to 8% capabilities of current thermoelectric systems. Radioisotopic energy converters have the potential to meet many future space power requirements for a wide variety of applications with less mass, better efficiency, and less total area than other power conversion options. These benefits result in significant dollar savings over the projected mission lifetime.


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    Title :

    Solid state radioisotopic energy converter for space nuclear power


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Proceedings of the tenth symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion ; 1993 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 271 , 1 ; 325-331


    Publication date :

    1993-01-10


    Size :

    7 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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