• DocumentCode
    3343359
  • Title

    A puzzling solar cell structure: An exercise to get insight on intermediate band solar cells

  • Author

    Marti, A. ; Antolin, E. ; Garcia-Linares, Pablo ; Ramiro, I. ; Lopez, Enrique ; Tobias, I. ; Luque, Antonio

  • Author_Institution
    Inst. de Energia Solar, Univ. Politec. de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
  • fYear
    2013
  • fDate
    16-21 June 2013
  • Firstpage
    1069
  • Lastpage
    1073
  • Abstract
    We introduce one trivial but puzzling solar cell structure. It consists of a high bandgap pn junction (top cell) grown on a substrate of lower bandgap. Let us assume, for example, that the bandgap of the top cell is 1.85 eV (Al0.3Ga0.7As) and the bandgap of the substrate is 1.42 eV (GaAs). Is the open-circuit of the top cell limited to 1.42 V or to 1.85 V? If the answer is “1.85 V” we could then make the mind experiment in which we illuminate the cell with 1.5 eV photons (notice these photons would only be absorbed in the substrate). If we admit that these photons can generate photocurrent, then because we have also admitted that the voltage is limited to 1.85 V, it might be possible that the electron-hole pairs generated by these photons were extracted at 1.6 V for example. However, if we do so, the principles of thermodynamics could be violated because we would be extracting more energy from the photon than the energy it initially had. How can we then solve this puzzle?
  • Keywords
    III-V semiconductors; solar cells; Al0.3Ga0.7As; GaAs; bandgap pn junction; electron volt energy 1.42 eV; electron volt energy 1.5 eV; electron volt energy 1.85 eV; electron-hole pairs; intermediate band solar cells; open-circuit; photocurrent; photons; puzzling solar cell structure; thermodynamics principles; voltage 1.6 V; Current-voltage characteristics; Mathematical model; Photoconductivity; Photonic band gap; Photonics; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; intermediate band solar cell; quantum efficiency model; solar cell modeling;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • Conference_Titel
    Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2013 IEEE 39th
  • Conference_Location
    Tampa, FL
  • Type

    conf

  • DOI
    10.1109/PVSC.2013.6744325
  • Filename
    6744325