Intermediate band solar cells

Author

Martí, Antonio ; Luque, Antonio

Author_Institution

Inst. de Energa Solar, Univ. Politec. de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

fYear

2009

fDate

13-17 July 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

This paper presents the basic structure and operation of intermediate band solar cells (IBSC). In this photovoltaic device, the energy of below band gap energy photons is exploited. The absorption of below band gap energy photons via transitions from the valence band to the intermediate band (IB) and from the IB to the conduction band is presented. Furthermore, the determination of IBSC´s output voltage through the split between electron and hole quasi-Fermi levels, which is limited by the total bandgap, is also discussed.

Keywords

Fermi level; conduction bands; energy gap; solar cells; valence bands; below band gap energy photons; conduction band; intermediate band; intermediate band solar cells; output voltage determination; photon absorption; photovoltaic device; quasiFermi levels; total bandgap; valence band; Absorption; Conducting materials; Electron devices; III-V semiconductor materials; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic systems; Physics; Solar power generation; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

OptoElectronics and Communications Conference, 2009. OECC 2009. 14th

Conference_Location

Hong Kong

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4102-0

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-4103-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/OECC.2009.5213791

Filename

5213791