Abstract
AbstractImprovement 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.
Highlights
The idea of hot carrier solar cell was proposed by Ross and Nozik in attempt to overcome Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit of 31% at 1 Sun in a simple photovoltaic device [1]
The heating will stop at the thermodynamic equilibrium with the Sun, when the radiative recombination reverts the radiation to the Sun in each arbitrary spectral region in accordance with detailed balance principle
The potential barrier height for the current of the thermionic emission flowing across the barriers at the interfaces includes additional energy of the band offsets, so that it is larger than the band gap in PbSe
Summary
The idea of hot carrier solar cell was proposed by Ross and Nozik in attempt to overcome Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit of 31% at 1 Sun (or 41% at full concentration) in a simple photovoltaic device [1]. Being a bulk rather than an interface effect, Seebeck effect determines the open circuit voltage of the hot carrier solar cell independently of the band offsets.
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