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The photovoltaic reciprocity theory relates the electroluminescence spectrum of a solar cell under applied bias to the external photovoltaic quantum efficiency of the device as measured at short circuit conditions. Its derivation is based…
The importance of considering near-field effects on photon recycling and spontaneous emission in a thermophotovoltaic device is investigated. Fluctuational electrodynamics is used to calculate external luminescence from a photovoltaic cell…
Ultrathin solar cells reduce material usage and allow the use of lower-quality materials thanks to their one order of magnitude smaller thickness than their conventional counterparts. However, efficient photonic light-trapping is required…
We propose a new concept for the design of high-efficiency photocells based on ultra-thin (submicron) semiconductor films of controlled thickness. Using a microscopic model of a thin dielectric layer interacting with incident…
The increase of cell efficiency resulting from using a diffraction grating as a back reflector is investigated. An enhancement coefficient is introduced as a figure of merit that accounts for the ability of the rear grating to increase the…
We study the radiative decay, or fluorescence, of excitons in organic solar cells as a function of its geometrical parameters. Contrary to their non-radiative counterpart, fluorescence losses strongly depend on the environment. By properly…
A design tool was formulated for optimizing the efficiency of inorganic, thin-film, photovoltaic solar cells. The solar cell can have multiple semiconductor layers in addition to antireflection coatings, passivation layers, and buffer…
The incoherence of sunlight has long been suspected to have an impact on solar cell energy conversion efficiency, although the extent of this is unclear. Existing computational methods used to optimize solar cell efficiency under incoherent…
The photovoltaic characteristics of an ultra-thin GaAs solar cell with gold back reflector are simulated using the standard semi-classical drift-diffusion-Poisson model and an advanced microscopic quantum-kinetic approach based on the…
Thermophotovotaics convert thermal radiation from local heat sources to electricity. A new breakthrough in creating highly efficient thin-film solar cells can potentially enable thermophotovoltaic systems with unprecedented high efficiency.…
Thin film solar cells have been attractive for decades in advanced green technology platforms due to its possibilities to be integrated with buildings and on-chip applications. However, the bottleneck issues involved to consider the current…
In developing photovoltaic devices with high efficiencies, quantitative determination of the carrier loss is crucial. In conventional solar-cell characterization techniques, however, photocurrent reduction originating from parasitic light…
The efficiency of GaAs nanowire solar cells can be significantly improved without any new processing steps or material requirements. We report coupled optoelectronic simulations of a GaAs nanowire (NW) solar cell with vertical p-i-n…
We develop a new approach to calculate the obtainable limit of photoconversion efficiency of tandem solar cells (SCs) and applied it to SCs with both vertical and lateral designs at AM0 and AM1.5 conditions. To get the maximum efficiency,…
Thin-film solar cells that are considered as the second generation of solar cells are known for their low cost and acceptable efficiency. In this technology, semiconductor layers with a thickness of micrometer are deposited on thick enough…
We discuss the effects of built-in fields and contact configuration on the photovoltaic characteristics of ultrathin GaAs solar cells. The investigation is based on advanced quantum-kinetic simulations reaching beyond the standard…
We derive new general expressions for the fluctuating electromagnetic field outside a homogeneous material surface. The analysis is based on general results from the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, and requires no consideration of…
The selfconsistent model for the temperature dependence of photoconversion efficiency $\eta$ for highly efficient silicon solar cells (SCs) is developed. It is demonstrated that effect of the efficiency decrease due to increasing…
III-V solar cells dominate the high efficiency charts, but with significantly higher cost than other solar cells. Ultrathin III-V solar cells can exhibit lower production costs and immunity to short carrier diffusion lengths caused by…
Photovoltaic energy conversion in photovoltaic cells has been analyzed by the detailed balance approach or by thermodynamic arguments. Here we introduce a network representation to analyze the performance of such systems once a suitable…