In-plane miniband formation of Si Nanodisc and its application in intermediate band photovoltaic

With the envelope-function theory, the finite element method is developed to calculate the electronic structure of the Si Nanodisc. In the 1D quantum well superlattice, our FEM results well match with the classic Kronig-Penney method. However, the Kronig-Penney method can deal with the high-dimensional and complex geometry shape. Even if adopting the independent potential approximation, the Kronig-Penney method overestimated the potential in the diagonal boundary to underestimate the miniband formation. Our FEM is suitable to calculate the electronic structure in the realistic QD superlattice. And with the finite design, the Si/SiC ND can work as the single-level IBSC, whose limitation efficiency is 43.81% in the structure with 2 nm thickness and 3 nm diameter.