C-14 beta converter
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14 Beta Converter A. V. Gurskaya*, M. V. Dolgopolov**, and V. I. Chepurnov*** Samara University, Samara, 443011 Russia *e-mail: [email protected] **e-mail: [email protected] ***e-mail: [email protected] Abstract—The study discusses the prospects for the development of low-voltage power supply sources. Beta isotope sources present great advantages for autonomous uninterrupted operation of remote devices, which gives an impulse to rapid development of betavoltaics. Silicon carbide homo- and hetero-structures serve as the isotope-based energy converters. We propose a new technology for isotope-based converter fabrication using silicon carbide and carbon-14 heterostructure as the active substance. DOI: 10.1134/S106377961706020X
INTRODUCTION The first studies of betavoltaics appeared in the 1960s. At first, isotopes of heavy elements, such as strontium-90, promethium-197, were used for development of power supply sources based on the betavoltaic effect [1–4]. Later, the prospects of application of the beta-voltaic effect in low-power batteries for microelectronics were outlined. In the recent decade, a number of patents [5–11] have appeared in this field and a substantial number of journal papers have been published [12–16]. It should be noted that commercial projects of beta-voltaic power supply sources existed in the United States in the 1990s [17, 18]. At that time, however, production of such batteries did not become widespread for the simple reason that few devices required these power supply sources. The 21st century is the era of miniaturization in electronics and reduction of its power consumption. Most devices today operate autonomously and remotely. They are object monitoring sensors, cardiac pacemakers, “smart home” and “smart car” system sensors, and so on. All these devices require batteries of a new type: on the one hand, they should be lowvoltage, and on the other hand, they should operate several times longer than all known batteries. In these conditions, the development of beta-voltaic power supply sources becomes quite important.
impact the very semiconductor structure. The technology for producing radioactive isotopes also encounters certain difficulties which may result in higher cost of the devices utilizing these isotopes. Let us consider the isotopes which can be applied as the active elements in a nuclear battery (see Table 1). The most common element is tritium, the source without accompanying radiations which emits low energy beta rays; this makes it attractive from the point of view of insignificant radiation damage. Tritium is used in betavoltaics in the gaseous form, as a solid alloy, and metal hydrides [19]. The gaseous form of H-3 is a naturally occurring isotope. It is produced in the Earth’s upper atmosphere in collisions of cosmic ray particles with the nuclei of atoms, for example, nitrogen. The second source of tritium is nuclear power plants. H-3 is a by-product of heavy element decay, for example, uranium. A tritium-based solidstate beta source can be obtained, for example, follo
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