Direct Energy Conversion discusses both the physics behind energy conversion processes and a wide variety of energy conversion devices. A direct energy conversion process converts one form of energy to another through a single process. The first half of this book surveys multiple devices that convert to or from electricity including piezoelectric devices/ antennas/ solar cells/ light emitting diodes/ lasers/ thermoelectric devices/ and batteries. In these chapters/ physical effects are discussed/ terminology used by engineers in the discipline is introduced/ and insights into material selection is studied. The second part of this book puts concepts of energy conversion in a more abstract framework. These chapters introduce the idea of calculus of variations and illuminate relationships between energy conversion processes.
