Related papers: Exploring the Theoretical Limits of Efficiency in …
When the quality of multijunction solar cells becomes sufficiently high, radiative exchange of photons between cells has to be taken into account to properly model these devices. In this work it is shown how this radiative coupling can be…
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…
CdTe is one of the leading materials for low cost, high efficiency thin-film solar cells, because it has a high absorption coefficient and a nearly ideal band gap of 1.48 eV for solar cell according to the Shockley-Queisser limit. However,…
The electronic and optical properties of CdGa2Te4 and ZnGa2Te4 were studied using first-principles DFT calculations. Band gaps were calculated using the GGA-PBESol functional. Both materials show promise for photovoltaic applications…
Since the photoconversion efficiency $\eta$ of the silicon-based solar cells (SCs) under laboratory conditions is approaching the theoretical fundamental limit, further improvement of their performance requires theoretical modeling and/or…
The GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well solar cell (QWSC) shows promise as a novel approach to higher efficiency solar cells but suffers from a poor short circuit current Jsc. We report on efforts to reduce this problem with the use of compositional…
Hot carrier solar cells promise theoretical power conversion efficiencies far beyond the single junction limit. However, practical implementations of hot carrier solar cells have lagged far behind those theoretical predictions. Reciprocity…
The paper presents a quantitative approach to the investigation and comparison of the material qualities of III-V on silicon (III-V/Si) solar cells by using external radiative efficiencies. We use this analysis to predict the limiting…
The radiative recombination, Shokley-Read recombination, frontal-surface and rear-surface recombination and the recombination at the heterojunction boundaries and the recombination in the space charge region are considered in the…
We propose a new triple-junction solar cell structure composed of a III-V heterojunction bipolar transistor solar cell (HBTSC) stacked on top of, and series-connected to, a Si solar cell (III-V-HBTSC-on-Si). The HBTSC is a novel…
Intermediate band solar cells hold the promise of ultrahigh power conversion efficiencies using a single semiconductor junction. Many current implementations use materials with bandgaps too small to achieve maximum efficiency or use…
Chalcopyrite semiconductors are of considerable interest for application as absorber layers in thin-film photovoltaic cells. When growing films of these compounds, however, they are often found to contain CuAu- like domains, a metastable…
In this article, we theoretically demonstrate multilevel impurity photovoltaic effect in an efficient silicon dual-homojunction solar cell that ensures an extended absorption of longer wavelength light. Along with suitable contact work…
We investigate the possible performance gains of power control in multi-layer cellular systems where microcells and picocells are distributed within macrocells. Although multilayers in cellular networks help increase system capacity and…
The intermediate band (IB) cell is a concept of highly efficient solar cells proposed by Luque and Marti in 1997. The IB concept uses nonlinear effect of two photon absorption enforced with concentration of such photons for generation of…
We discuss regular particle arrays as nanostructured front layers for 3rd generation photovoltaic devices. A rigorous plane-wave method is used to investigate multi-type particle layers combining different radii and configurations. The…
We theoretically demonstrate the fundamental limit in volume for given materials (e.g. Si, a-Si, CdTe) to fully absorb the solar radiation above bandgap, which we refer as solar superabsorption limit. We also point out the general…
Atomically thin layered materials such as graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides exhibit great potential as active materials in optoelectronic devices because of their high carrier-transporting properties and strong light-matter…
We perform the quantum yields in a multi-band quantum dot (QD) photocell via doping an intermediate band (IB) between the conduction band (CB) and valence band (VB). Under two different sub-band gap layouts, the output power has a prominent…
To obtain significant increases in the Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of solar cells, future cell research and development should be based on the concomitant improvement of multiple material properties, rather than on the…