State-of-the-art electrodynamic tethers reach a steady electric current by using a bare segment to capture electrons passively from the ambient plasma (anodic contact) and an active electron emitter or a tether segment coated with a low-work-function material (cathodic contact) to emit electrons back and close the electrical circuit. This work proposes to take advantage of recent developments on thin-film solar cells and insert a photovoltaic (pv) tether segment in between the anodic and the cathodic contacts. Since thin-film solar cells can be folded and manufactured with any desired length and the same cross-section dimensions as the bare segment, i.e. width and thickness around few centimeters and tens of microns, the resulting device is compact and preserves bare tether simplicity. Detailed analysis of the current and voltage profiles throughout the tether shows that the electrical power introduced by the pv-segment into the tether-plasma circuit improves the performance and makes them less dependent on ambient conditions. The pv-segment decreases considerably the tether-to-plasma bias at the cathodic contact, thus opening the possibility to emit substantial current while using consumable-less electron emitters like thermionic and electron field emitters. The pv-segment also favors the current collection by increasing the tether-to-plasma bias at the bare segment. Propulsion and power generation applications and alternative architectures of bare-pv tethers are briefly discussed.

最先进的电动系链通过使用裸露的段从环境等离子体中被动捕获电子（阳极接触）以及覆盖有低功函数材料的有源电子发射器或系链段来获得稳定的电流（阴极接触）以释放电子并闭合电路。这项工作建议利用薄膜太阳能电池的最新发展，并在阳极和阴极触点之间插入光伏（pv）系链段。由于薄膜太阳能电池可以以任何期望的长度和与裸露段相同的横截面尺寸（即，宽度和厚度大约为几厘米和几十微米）折叠和制造，因此所得装置紧凑且保留了裸露的系绳简单性。对整个系绳中电流和电压曲线的详细分析表明，pv段将电源引入系绳等离子电路可提高性能，并使它们对环境的依赖性降低。pv段显着降低了阴极触点处的系链至等离子偏压，因此在使用像热电子和电子场发射器这样的无消耗电子发射器的同时，可以发射大量电流。pv细分市场还通过增加裸露部分的系链对等离子的偏向来支持当前的收集。简要讨论了推进和发电应用以及裸PV系绳的替代架构。