Related papers: A dynamic picture of energy conversion in photovol…
Solar cells are engines converting energy supplied by the photon flux into work. All known types of macroscopic engines and turbines are also self-oscillating systems which yield a periodic motion at the expense of a usually non-periodic…
A solar cell is a heat engine, but textbook treatments are not wholly satisfactory from a thermodynamic standpoint, since they present solar cells as directly converting the energy of light into electricity, and the current in the circuit…
Hot-carrier solar cells use the photon excess energy, that is, the energy exceeding the absorber bandgap, to do additional work. These devices have the potential to beat the upper limit for the photovoltaic power conversion efficiency set…
The implementation of a wide range of novel concepts for next-generation high-efficiency solar cells is based on nanostructures with configuration-tunable optoelectronic properties. On the other hand, effective nano-optical light-trapping…
In the previous paper of Alicki et.al. a model of a solar cell has been proposed in which the non-periodic source of energy - photon flux - drives the collective periodic motion of electrons in a form of plasma oscillations. Subsequently,…
Hot-carrier solar cells are envisioned to utilize energy filtering to extract power from photogenerated electron-hole pairs before they thermalize with the lattice, and thus potentially offer higher power conversion efficiency compared to…
Among the parameters determining the efficiency of an organic solar cell, the open-circuit voltage ($V_\text{OC}$) is the one with most room for improvement. Existing models for the description of $V_\text{OC}$ assume that photogenerated…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamics of two quantum systems, a two-level system and a four-level quantum photocell, each driven by photon pulses as a quantum heat engine. We set these systems to be in thermal contact only with a cold…
In conventional solar cells, photogenerated carriers lose part of their energy before they can be extracted to make electricity. The aim of hot-carrier solar cells is to extract the carriers before this energy loss, thereby turning more…
Thin films are gaining ground in photonics and optoelectronics, promising improvements in their efficiency and functionality as well as decreased material usage as compared to bulk technologies. However, proliferation of thin films would…
The case of a non-biased (light excited) p-n photo-voltaic (PV) cell working in a closed circuit with a resistive load is investigated by means of irreversible thermodynamics in the linear range. To our knowledge, this is the first time…
In this perspective, we explore the insights into the device physics of perovskite solar cells gained from modeling and simulation of these devices. We discuss a range of factors that influence the modeling of perovskite solar cells,…
Accurate modeling of charge transport and both thermal and luminescent radiation is crucial to the understanding and design of radiative thermal energy converters. Charge carrier dynamics in semiconductors are well-described by the…
Heterostructures based on atomically thin semiconductors are considered a promising emerging technology for the realization of ultrathin and ultralight photovoltaic solar cells on flexible substrates. Much progress has been made in recent…
Many advanced concepts for high-efficiency photovoltaic devices exploit the peculiar optoelectronic properties of semiconductor nanostructures such as quantum wells, wires and dots. While the optics of such devices is only modestly affected…
Organic heterojunction solar cells are analyzed within a minimal model that includes the essential physical features of such systems. The dynamical properties of this model, calculated using a master equation approach, account for the…
Phenomena involving electron transfer are ubiquitous in nature, photosynthesis and enzymes or protein activity being prominent examples. Their deep understanding thus represents a mandatory scientific goal. Moreover, controlling the…
The extraction of photogenerated charge carriers and the generation of a photovoltage belong to the fundamental functionalities of any solar cell. These processes happen not instantaneously but rather come with finite time constants, e.g.,…
The photovoltaic solar cell is a mature technology, with silicon-based technologies deployed at scale, yet current technologies are limited by the Shockley-Queisser thermodynamic limit, known since the early 1960s. The single-junction…
Particle-exchange machines utilize electronic transport to continuously transfer heat between fermionic reservoirs. Here, we couple a quantum mechanical resonator to a particle-exchange machine hosted in a quantum dot and let the system run…