Case Study: Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) achieves improved power-generation efficiency for extreme-environment devices with COMSOL Multiphysics

Italian Institute of Technology - Customer Case Study

The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) tackled the challenge of improving power generation in extreme environments—developing photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) cells for deep‑space satellites and plasmonic nanoantennas for biomedical/neural applications—where electron emission, space‑charge effects, heat, optics, and fluid interactions limit efficiency and device reliability. To analyze these tightly coupled phenomena the team used Comsol and its COMSOL Multiphysics software.

Using Comsol’s COMSOL Multiphysics, IIT built coupled electrical, thermal, optical and particle‑tracing models to study PETE cells and nanoantennas, testing electrode geometries (including nanocones) and a positively charged mesh gate. The simulations guided selection of gate voltage, pitch and anode‑cathode spacing, substantially reducing space‑charge buildup, boosting electron extraction and current density at the anode, and improving power‑conversion efficiency; they also identified safe operating ranges for nanoantennas in aqueous media to avoid ionization.

Italian Institute of Technology

Pierfrancesco Zilio

Post-Doctoral Fellow