Find in Library

We present a numerical study using a self-consistent drift-diffusion approach to characterize the effect of light trapping on the quantum efficiency (QE) of a thin-film quantum dot intermediate band solar cell (QD-IBSC). In the concept of the IBSCs, the photons with energies lower than the bandgap of the host material can be absorbed in QDs due to the presence of the IB, leading to high photocurrent and conversion efficiency. However, in general, the quality of the QD structure is degraded due to the accumulated strain when the number of QD layers stacked vertically is increased, which is required to increase light absorption. In the present work, we adopted a Fabry-Pérot (FP) resonance structure to achieve high absorption with fewer QD layers. We demonstrate numerically, in a InAs/GaAs-based QDSC structure, that an increase in the QE by 8 times at maximum is achievable by tuning the position of the QD layers inserted.