Hot carrier solar cell absorber prerequisites and candidate material systems

Conibeer, Gavin; Shrestha, Santosh; Huang, Shujuan; Patterson, Robert; Xia, Hongze; Feng, Yuqing; Zhang, Pengfei; Gupta, Neeti; Tayebjee, Murad J. Y.; Smyth, Suntrana; Liao, Yuanxun; Lin, Sophia; Wang, Pei; Dai, Xianzhe; Chung, Simon

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2014.11.015

Cited by 86 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The working principle of hot carrier solar cells is to reduce thermalization loss by suppress carrier cooling (phonon absorption) and extract those hot carriers through narrow energy bands or discrete states by selective contacts [95]. In cold carrier EEHs, however, decoupling carriers and phonons is not to prevent carrier cooling but rather carrier heating.…”

Section: Cold Carrier Eehmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

et al. 2017

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Radiative sky cooling reduces the temperature of a system by promoting heat exchange with the sky; its key advantage is that no input energy is required. We will review the origins of radiative sky cooling from ancient times to the modern day, and illustrate how the fundamental physics of radiative cooling calls for a combination of properties that may not occur in bulk materials. A detailed comparison with recent modeling and experiments on nanophotonic structures will then illustrate the advantages of this recently emerging approach. Potential applications of these radiative cooling materials to a variety of temperature-sensitive optoelectronic devices, such as photovoltaics, thermophotovoltaics, rectennas, and infrared detectors, will then be discussed. This review will conclude by forecasting the prospects for the field as a whole in both terrestrial and space-based systems.

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Section: Cold Carrier Eehmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

et al. 2017

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“…3,4 Conibeer et al suggested a number of other materials that might show similar properties. 5 In these materials there is a large phononic band gap that prevents optical phonons to undergo Klemens decay; that is, decaying into two acoustic phonons with equal energy, but opposite momenta. 6 If the material has a narrow optical phonon energy dispersion, as in materials with high symmetry, Ridley decay can also be minimized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nanostructured quantum wells have also shown reduced carrier cooling. 8,9 The mechanisms causing this are not yet fully understood, but one or more of the following are believed to play a role: 5 (1) Pile-up of hot carriers in the quantum wells create a phonon bottleneck effect. (2) Limited overlap between the optical phonon energies in the well and barrier material confines the phonons to the quantum wells.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat to electricity conversion by cold carrier emissive energy harvesters

Strandberg

2015

Journal of Applied Physics

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This paper suggests a method to convert heat to electricity by the use of devices called cold carrier emissive energy harvesters (cold carrier EEHs). The working principle of such converters is explained and theoretical power densities and efficiencies are calculated for ideal devices. Cold carrier EEHs are based on the same device structure as hot carrier solar cells, but works in an opposite way. Whereas a hot carrier solar cell receives net radiation from the sun and converts some of this radiative heat flow into electricity, a cold carrier EEH sustains a net outflux of radiation to the surroundings while converting some of the energy supplied to it into electricity. It is shown that the most basic type of cold carrier EEHs have the same theoretical efficiency as the ideal emissive energy harvesters described earlier by Byrnes et al. In the present work, it is also shown that if the emission from the cold carrier EEH originates from electron transitions across an energy gap where a difference in the chemical potential of the electrons above and below the energy gap is sustained, power densities slightly higher than those given by Byrnes et al. can be achieved. V C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx

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“…It is worth mentioning that the other route to minimize the effects of carrier‐phonon scattering on hot‐carrier solar cells is to focus on the roles of phonons, rather than carriers. Reducing the energy transfer between carriers and phonons can possibly be achieved by modifying either the carrier‐phonon interaction mechanism or the lifetimes of optical phonons . It has been theoretically shown that, if the lifetime of LO phonons can be prolonged to 1 nanosecond, the maximum achievable efficiency of hot‐carrier solar cells will be about 63%.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of intraband and interband carrier‐carrier scattering on hot‐carrier solar cells: A theoretical study of spectral hole burning, electron‐hole energy transfer, Auger recombination, and impact ionization generation

Tsai

2019

Progress in Photovoltaics

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The effects of carrier‐carrier scattering resulting from the Coulomb‐potential interaction between two electrons on hot‐carrier solar cells are theoretically studied. Theoretical models and explicit formulas for calculating intraband carrier‐carrier scattering rates, electron‐to‐hole energy transfer rates, Auger recombination rates, and impact ionization generation rates are presented and derived. The numerical calculations from these formulas are obtained, and their effects on hot‐carrier solar cells are investigated. Several findings can be concluded from this study: (1) Intraband electron‐electron scattering and hole‐hole scattering are normally fast enough to randomize carrier distribution in the momentum space and thus maintain quasiequilibrium to establish electron and hole temperatures at a steady state; (2) spectral hole burning in hot‐carrier solar cells can be incurred by fast carrier extraction processes through energy‐selective contacts and slow intraband carrier‐carrier scattering; (3) energy transfer between electrons and holes via intraband electron‐hole scattering cannot guarantee that electrons and holes will maintain the same carrier temperature for hot‐carrier solar cells in all cases, especially if the difference between electron and hole temperatures is smaller than 100 K; and (4) materials with a band‐gap energy larger than 1 eV are favorable as conventional solar cells in which Auger recombination is not significant. On the contrary, materials with a band‐gap energy smaller than 0.5 eV are not suitable for conventional solar cells due to the detrimental effects of Auger recombination. However, they are ideal materials for realizing hot‐carrier solar cells due to beneficial effects of impact ionization generation, although these beneficial effects can be undermined by spectral hole burning.

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Hot carrier solar cell absorber prerequisites and candidate material systems

Cited by 86 publications

References 37 publications

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

Heat to electricity conversion by cold carrier emissive energy harvesters

The effects of intraband and interband carrier‐carrier scattering on hot‐carrier solar cells: A theoretical study of spectral hole burning, electron‐hole energy transfer, Auger recombination, and impact ionization generation

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