[Vo]:Re: Valone cited thermovoltaic cells as cheap energy devices

[Charles M. Brown]

Instead of IR photons being plentiful at a source and rare 
at a sink, I see events as the IR creating electron / hole 
pairs that are locally out of equilibrium and then pulled 
apart by the local crystal charge so the electrons are 
pulled to the N doped side and the holes to the P side as 
light generated electron / hole pairs are in conventional 
photocells.  This is testable by experimentation. I only 
have a rough idea of either positive or negative tending 
data on this already observed. Some people say that there 
is some dark current from low band gap material photocells 
others say not.

Aloha,
Charlie