ECE 2295 Project Report

Intermediate band solar cell and quantum dots method

Baomin Wang

Wenchao Xie

Intermediate band solar cell and quantum dots method

Abstract Due to the lack of oil, coal, natural gas and other traditional power, resource, solar cells utilizing sun power became the hot topic of research. Here, we do some paper review about solar cell, especially third generation solar cells trying to exceed the Shockley-Queisser limit (about 31%). In this paper, we will give the advantages of solar cell and some basic information about third generation solar cells, including the motivation why we try to explore the third generation solar cells and main methods and ways to develop third generation solar cells. Then we introduce the intermediate band concept and discuss the intermediate band solar cells in detail. We will discuss the band structure of intermediate band, Quasi-Fermi level split, optimal band energy level, efficiency limitation and ways to fabricate intermediate band solar cells. Then we will introduce the concept of quantum dots and give some systems of intermediate band solar cells based on quantum dots. And then we state ways to improve the efficiency of solar cells and the limitations of QD-IBSC (quantum dots intermediate band solar cell). Introduction We know that 85% of our energy demand is met by fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil), but these resources are not renewable, and the use of fossil fuels introduces environment problem, and the most serious one is global warming. From long ago, researchers began to focus on new energy, clear, renewable and efficient, such as wind energy source, hydro energy, nuclear and solar power. And the most popular topic is about solar cells. Solar power is an attractive energy because it is a renewable and abundant resource. And it is also environment friendly; since it is free from the problems with fossil fuel or nuclear power, increasing waste disposal, heat dissipation, high cost and safety problems. And the lift time of photovoltaic equipment is longer, up to several decades. And photovoltaic equipment can be used wherever there is light, solar or artificial, even in cloudy weather conditions. Importantly, the photovoltaic equipment is modular, so they can be installed near points of use and put on line quickly as the demand for electricity increases. So, solar power can provide energy for millions of small villages. However, one of the biggest problems of the use of solar power is the low efficiency of solar cells. So researchers have been committing to improve the performance of solar cells.

First and second generation solar cells As we know, the research of first and second generations solar cells has a longer period, such as monocrastaline solar cells, thin film solar cells, organic solar cells and dye-sensitized solar cells. And the efficiency of these types of solar cells is limited by the Shockley-Queisser limit[1], as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. The relation between efficiency and band gap

But as shown in figure 2[2], the cost of the first and second generations solar cells is higher and efficiency is lower. So the materials costs and availability are driving the evolution of PV technology towards a third generation. And the target is low-cost devices operating at efficiencies exceeding single-junction devices.

Figure 2.Comparison of the three generations solar cells

Intermediate band solar cells And now there are several ways to fabricate third generation solar cells: Tandem cells, which is the only proven technology so far; Hot carrier cells; Multiple exciton generation cells; Thermophotovoltaic and thermophotonic conversion; Multiple energy level cells. Now we introduce the intermediate band solar cell. The intermediate band has to be sandwiched between two single gap semiconductors [3], as shown in figure 3. Quasi-Fermi levels are EFC, EFI, and EFV for the CB, IB and VB respectively.

Figure 4. Limit of solar cell efficiency Figure 3. Intermediate band solar cell

For the intermediate band solar cell, it can utilize the sub-bandgap photons. It has higher photocurrent and higher efficiency arising from absorption of 2 sub-bandgap photons to create one electron-hole pair. Importantly, is also can maintains high output voltage, because the output voltage is decided by the highest band gap energy, so it is not influenced by the insertion of IB. And in the operation of IB, the IB should be half-filled with electrons, because it should accept electron from VB and provide electrons for CB. Through calculations, the optimal band gap for IB solar cell is EL=0.71 eV, EH=1.24 eV, and EG=1.95 eV. The maximum efficiency for a 3-band cell is 63.1% in this condition, as shown in figure 4[4].For the IBSC, the efficiency limit of 63.1% is about the same as for a triple junction tandem cell. Compare with tandem cells, IBSC has simpler structure and more choice of semiconductors. From the review of literature, there are several main methods [5] to fabricate the IBSC. The first one is direct synthesis, and the possible materials for this method are Transition-metal impurities in semiconductors: Ga4P3M and GaxPyM alloys, and M is a transition metal such as Ti. The second one is porous material, and one system from R. Konenkamp is TiO2 and PbS are the porous and absorber

material respectively. And another one, we focused on is based on quantum dots. Quantum Dot For the quantum dots, Electrons and holes are confined in all three dimensions of space by a surrounding material with a larger bandgap. And it has discrete energy levels. With a smaller dot size, quantum dot has a larger bandgap. Like bulk semiconductor, electrons tend to make transitions near the edges of the bandgap in quantum dots. Quantum dots have very small semiconductor particles with a size comparable to the Bohr radius of the excitons (separation of electron and hole).The typical dimension is 1 10 nm, but it can be also as large as several m. There are different shapes for quantum dots, such as cubes, spheres and pyramids. QD-IBSC-Quantum dot intermediate band solar cell The concepts of intermediate band and quantum dot have been discussed in the previous sections, in this section, these two concepts will be combined together to get the quantum dot intermediate band solar cell (QD-IBSC), which to some degree can be used as a promising way to improve the efficiency of the solar cell. Figure.5[6] shows a simplified structure of the solar cell using quantum dot implementation, it is the same with traditional solar cells that it is still made of two emitters that are separately p type and n type semiconductors, what is different is that a quantum dot layer is sandwiched between them to offer the intermediate band wanted, here the quantum layer is not just made up of single quantum dot materials, actually these small quantum dots exist in certain regular arrays, the empty space is filled with other chemical compounds, here is called barrier material.

Figure.5 Sketch of the quantum dot intermediate band solar cell

To examine how the intermediate band appears, the details of the energy band will be talked about here, for a single quantum dot has a certain radius, there will be a corresponding potential well, which is showed in Figure.6[6] as V0, due to this certain potential well, more energy levels will become available, these energy levels are illustrated as El in the figure, actually it can be simply thought that the radius of the quantum dot will determine the energy level that can be used, but there is certain limitations for the value of the radius of the quantum dot, as shown in Figure.7[6], each curve represents a certain energy level that can be developed by several values of the quantum dot radiuses and the corresponding potential wells, there will be a maximum limitation for the radius to prevent more energy levels appearing , also a minimum radius is determined by the whole band gap of the material.

Figure.6The band gap for an single quantum dot

Figure.7Potential well as a function of the radius of the quantum dot

Design rules for Quantum Dot Intermediate Band Solar Cell It seems like the concepts of the intermediate band solar cell are becoming a clearer route for designing such devices, so there are some constrains that have to be considered when real application is going to be realized. Here several important considerations will be discussed [7]. The first one is the continuity of the valence band, as it can also be seen from Figure.6, the valence band is suggested to be in the same level both in dot material and in barrier material, on the contrary, the conduction band has to be considered discontinuous, these two suggestions are from the reasons as follows, for the continuous valence band, it can be used to prevent the holes in the valence band from introducing the intermediates states undesired. And the discontinues conduction band is to offer the potential wells and adjust the intermediate level to the wanted level. Another point is that the lattice constant of the substrate should be the value between the barrier material and the dot material, for this assumption, this is due to the compressive strains accumulated when growing more than one

layer dot layers, as it is also an drawback for tandem solar cells, using this as a consideration really makes sense for making a compensation to these strains and defects. For the band gap of the material, it can also be observed from Figure.6 that the direct band gap material is preferred for the reason that by choosing the direct band gap material, which has a higher absorption coefficient, the efficiency can absolutely be improved from absorbing more light than those indirect band gap material. From the perspective of industry fabrications, binary material is preferred for reducing the complexity of the fabrication and also the substrate should be commercially available. Material systems for QD-IBSC Obeying the design rules mentioned above, several quantum dot and barrier materials are illustrated in Table 1[7] to make a comparison of their properties.

Dot material

Barrier

Max. Barrier Efficiency band gap @ 1000 suns 53% 53% 1.42eV 1.42eV 1.18eV 1.79eV

CB offset

InP0.85Sb0.15 GaAs InAs0.40P0.60 GaAs InAs InP

0.49eV 0.49eV 0.83eV 0.43eV

GaAs0.88Sb0.12 48% GaAs0.70P0.30 49%

Table 1. Promising III-V material systems

From Table1, we can see that by using different materials of quantum dot and barrier and also by changing the proportions of the chemical elements we can get different efficiency of the device. Actually, several different structures having different characteristics have been developed in the research, such as the one using InAs quantum dot material[8], it added a Si -doping to give one electron per dot to improve efficiency, other structures named InGaAs/GaAs QD superlattice[9] andQD superacrystals[10]are

also been in the research. Limitations of QD-IBSC The introductions of the intermediate band using quantum dots have offered a method to improve the efficiency of the solar cell, but there are still limitations of them. The number of the quantum dots is an constrain for the efficiency, if the number is not enough, it may cause the low absorption of the transfer between the different energy levels, also, when the relaxation and the capture of the carriers happen too quickly, it will lead to the low open-circuit. Actually, the role of the quantum dots can also change to as traps in the device to cause the current to be low. Summary The intermediate band solar cell is a new approach to improve the efficiency of the solar cell by simply implying the concept of the appearance of an additional energy level, thus breaking the limitation of the traditional single junction solar cells. The appliance of the quantum dot offers a promising way for the realization of an intermediate band, several design rules for the QD-IBSC are also stressed in this review for a clearer understanding of the realization of these concepts, though several constrains limit the use of them, since quantum dot is also a hot research area and a lot of work related to it is being done now, so the appliance of the QD structure will have more space to be improved and the realization of the QD-IBSC seems to have a bright future.

Reference [1] W. Shockley, Hans J. Queisser, J. Appl. Phys., Volume 32 Number 3. March, 1961. [2] Gavin Conibeer (2007), Masterials Today, 10.42 [3] A. Luque and A. Mart, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 247701 (2006) [4] A. Luque and A. Mart, Phys. Rev.Lett. 78, 5014 (1997) [5] L. Cuadra, A. Mart, Thin Solid Films, 451-452 (2004) 593-599 [6]L. Cuadra, et, al. Thin Solid Films, 451-452 (2004) 593-599 [7]M. Levy, IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, Vol. 55, no. 2 March 2008 [8]A. Luque, et, al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 083505 (2005) [9]A. G. Norman, et, al. 31st IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference and Exhibition Lake Buena Vista, Florida January 37, 2005 [10]Q. Shao, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 163503 (2007)