Beattie, N.S., See, P., Zoppi, G. et al. (6 more authors) (2018) Design and fabrication of InAs/GaAs QD based intermediate band solar cells by quantum engineering. In: 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC). 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC), 10-15 Jun 2018, Waikoloa Village, HI, USA. IEEE , pp. 2747-2751. ISBN 9781538685303
Abstract
The efficiency of a solar cell can be substantially increased by opening new energy gaps within the semiconductor band gap. This creates additional optical absorption pathways which can be fully exploited under concentrated sunlight. Here we report a new approach to opening a sizeable energy gap in a single junction GaAs solar cell using an array of small InAs QDs that leads directly to high device open circuit voltage. High resolution imaging of individual QDs provides experimentally obtained dimensions to a quantum mechanical model which can be used to design an optimised QD array. This is then implemented by precisely engineering the shape and size of the QDs resulting in a total area (active area) efficiency of 18.3% (19.7%) at 5 suns concentration. The work demonstrates that only the inclusion of an appropriately designed QD array in a solar cell has the potential to result in ultra-high efficiency under concentration.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Intermediate Band Solar Cell; QDs; Photovoltaics; High Efficiency |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Nov 2019 14:34 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2019 01:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | IEEE |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1109/pvsc.2018.8547630 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:153442 |