An impinging receiver design has been developed for a small scale solar dish-Brayton system. A numerical conjugate heat transfer model combined with a ray-tracing model, based on the boundary conditions of the micro gas turbine and the EuroDish system, has been used for studying the thermal performance of an impinging receiver. According to the results of the preliminary estimation by an inverse design method, four possible impinging nozzle arrangements have been studied by the numerical model based on a 240 mm diameter and 3 mm wall thickness cavity. The inverse design method has been verified to be an efficient way in reducing the calculation costs during the design procedure. Furthermore, the impacts of the cavity diameter and the wall thickness have also been studied. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.