Open circuit voltage recovery in quantum dot solar cells: a numerical study on the impact of wetting layer and doping
- Author(s): Federica Cappelluti 1 ; Arastoo Khalili 1 ; Mariangela Gioannini 1
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- Source:
Volume 11, Issue 2,
April 2017,
p.
44 – 48
DOI: 10.1049/iet-opt.2016.0069 , Print ISSN 1751-8768, Online ISSN 1751-8776
The authors present a numerical study on the influence of wetting layer states and doping on the photovoltage loss of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells. Quantum-mechanical simulations are used to analyse how the reduction of wetting layer by Al(Ga)As overgrowth changes the quantum dot electronic states. Device-level simulations allow to correlate such changes with the achievable open circuit voltage. Almost full open circuit voltage recovery is predicted by combining wetting layer reduction, to realise thermal decoupling of barrier and quantum dot confined states, and doping to suppress radiative recombination through the quantum dot confined states.
Inspec keywords: gallium arsenide; doping; indium compounds; III-V semiconductors; semiconductor quantum dots; semiconductor doping; solar cells; wetting
Other keywords: wetting layer reduction; device-level simulations; photovoltage loss; full open circuit voltage recovery; quantum dot confined states; InAs-GaAs; InAs-GaAs quantum dot solar cells; thermal barrier decoupling; doping; quantum-mechanical simulations; radiative recombination; wetting layer states; quantum dot electronic states
Subjects: Solar cells and arrays; Doping and implantation of impurities; Electronic structure of II-VI and III-V semiconductors (thin films, low dimensional and nanoscale structures); Semiconductor doping; Photoelectric conversion; solar cells and arrays
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