Usable energy from alpha particles?

[garyTheSnail]

TL;DR

Usable energy from alpha particles?

Please excuse my physics ignorance.
Can usable energy be extracted from alpha particles? Perhaps in a manner similar to a photovoltaic panel producing power when exposed to light?
Thank you.

 

[berkeman]

Since they are charged particles, you may be able to use Direct Conversion to extract electrical energy from their kinetic energy, depending on the vector distribution of that kinetic energy. What is the source of your alpha particles?

For other vector distributions of the KE, there are other techniques:

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.872124

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230911390_Utility_of_extracting_alpha_particle_energy_by_waves

 

[Vanadium 50]

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

 

[garyTheSnail]

Thank you for the replies and links. The source of the alpha particles is ambient or cosmic radiation.

 

[berkeman]

Thank you for the replies and links. The source of the alpha particles is ambient or cosmic radiation.

Ah, so very low flux, right? Ambient will be isotropic and cosmic will be slightly non-isotropic, but with such low fluxes it's hard to see much energy harvesting from either. Is that what you are thinking of calculating?

 

[Vanadium 50]

There are approximately zero alphas in cosmic rays. There are only incrementally more than that in the ambient environment.

 

[berkeman]

There are approximately zero alphas in cosmic rays. There are only incrementally more than that in the ambient environment.

But to how many significant figures?