Hot carrier solar cells: Achievable efficiency accounting for heat losses in the absorber and through contacts

Bris, Arthur Le; Guillemoles, Jean‐François

doi:10.1063/1.3489405

Cited by 120 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…8.3 to bridge the PC model and IA model, i.e., to involve the effect of impact ionization and Auger recombination quantitatively, assuming immediate equilibration, and applied to InN absorbers. Le Bris et al have proposed another model of the energy dissipation due to the thermalization to involve the dependence of the thermalization rate on the carrier temperature T c [49,50]. These analyses have drawn similar conclusions.…”

Section: Summary Of the Requisites For High Conversion Efficiencysupporting

confidence: 55%

Requisites for Highly Efficient Hot-Carrier Solar Cells

Takeda

2013

Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology

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We have constructed new models based on detailed balance of particle and energy fluxes to clarify the operating principle of hot-carrier solar cells (HC-SCs) and find the requisites for high conversion efficiency. Energy dissipation due to thermalization of photogenerated carriers can be significantly reduced, even though the thermalization time is not sufficiently long. Instead, the energy dissipation related to entropy generation associated with hot-carrier extraction is remarkable. The thermalization time must be several nanoseconds to exceed the Shockley-Queisser limit under the 1 sun solar irradiation and over 10 ns to compete against triple-junction solar cells at 1,000 sun. The other requisites unique to hot-carrier extraction are a short carrier equilibration time being around one-thousandth of the thermalization time, and an energy-selection width of energy-selective contacts (ESCs) for mono-energetic carrier extraction, which is needed to match the quasi-Fermi levels in the hot absorber and in the cold electrodes, being narrower than 0.1 eV. It seems extremely challenging to fulfill all the requisites, although investigations for material development as well as new concepts for post conventional HC-SCs are underway. IntroductionIn a conventional solar cell, a photon whose energy is higher than the bandgap of the light-absorbing material used in the cell is absorbed to generate a carrier with an energy equal to the photon energy. However, carrier energies in excess of the bandgap of the absorber immediately dissipate by emitting phonons whose temperature equals the room temperature, namely, thermalization of carriers occurs within several picoseconds in most cases. Therefore, the excess carrier energies cannot be

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Section: Summary Of the Requisites For High Conversion Efficiencysupporting

confidence: 55%

Requisites for Highly Efficient Hot-Carrier Solar Cells

Takeda

2013

Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology

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“…The cell operation is usually described from the point of view of the kinetic transport theory by consideration of quasi-equilibrium thermal emission of the hot carriers from the absorber material into the energy filtering structure. This emission may be described in simple cases by the thermionic emission theory [3,[6][7][8][9][10], being a kinetic transport theory. Kinetic theories are in principle wellsuited to describe charge transport in the solar cell; however, the description is rather complex in various specific cases.…”

Section: Hot Carrier Solar Cell As Thermoelectric Devicementioning

confidence: 99%

Hot carrier solar cell as thermoelectric device

Konovalov

Емельянов

2017

Energy Science & Engineering

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Improvement of solar cell efficiency beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit requires introduction of new physical concepts. One such concept is hot carrier solar cell, proposed more than three decades ago and still not impressively demonstrated in experiment. Here we show that hot carrier solar cell may be considered as thermoelectric device based on Seebeck effect. This enables one to describe the operation of hot carrier solar cell in a simple way. We fabricated a prototype of the hot carrier solar cell showing open circuit voltage at room temperature larger than the band gap in the absorber material. Extrapolation of open circuit voltage to absolute zero temperature results in barrier height depending on light intensity, interpreted by splitting of quasi-Fermi levels between the regions of different carrier temperature. Properties of the prototype solar cell may be described by kinetic transport theory as well as from the point of view of the thermoelectric theory. 114

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“…the increase in entropy on carrier extraction is minimized. 4,5 Fig. 1 is a schematic band diagram of a Hot Carrier cell illustrating these requirements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hot carrier solar cell absorbers: materials, mechanisms and nanostructures

et al. 2014

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The hot carrier cell aims to extract the electrical energy from photo-generated carriers before they thermalize to the band edges. Hence it can potentially achieve a high current and a high voltage and hence very high efficiencies up to 65% under 1 sun and 86% under maximum concentration. To slow the rate of carrier thermalisation is very challenging, but modification of the phonon energies and the use of nanostructures are both promising ways to achieve some of the required slowing of carrier cooling. A number of materials and structures are being investigated with these properties and test structures are being fabricated. Initial measurements indicate slowed carrier cooling in III-Vs with large phonon band gaps and in multiple quantum wells. It is expected that soon proof of concept of hot carrier devices will pave the way for their development to fully functioning high efficiency solar cells.

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Hot carrier solar cells: Achievable efficiency accounting for heat losses in the absorber and through contacts

Cited by 120 publications

References 13 publications

Requisites for Highly Efficient Hot-Carrier Solar Cells

Requisites for Highly Efficient Hot-Carrier Solar Cells

Hot carrier solar cell as thermoelectric device

Hot carrier solar cell absorbers: materials, mechanisms and nanostructures

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