Name: Exploiting intervalley scattering to harness hot carriers in III–V solar cells - Nature Energy
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Exploiting intervalley scattering to harness hot carriers in III–V solar cells - Nature Energy

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Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtainthe best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode inInternet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without stylesand JavaScript.AdvertisementA to this article was published on 29 July 2020This article has beenHot carrier solar cells offer the potential to exceed the Shockley–Queisser limit. So far, however, there has been no clear route to achieve this result. Recently, the exploitation of the satellite valleys of the solar absorber material has been proposed as a feasible approach to harness hot carriers. Here, we show that, upon photoinduced and field-aided intervalley scattering to upper L-valleys, hot carriers can be harnessed in InGaAs/AlInAs heterojunctions at voltages defined by the upper valley (~1.25 V in the ideal case) rather than the bandgap of the InGaAs absorber (0.75 eV) under practical operational conditions. The efficiency of the present system does not exceed the single bandgap limit due to a mismatch in the valley degeneracy across the n+-AlInAs/n-InGaAs interface. However, we suggest that this is not a fundamental limitation to the realization of a hot carrier solar cell.This is a preview of subscription content,Open Access articles citing this article.Subscribe to JournalGet full journal access for 1 year$119.00only $9.92 per issueAll prices are NET prices. VAT will be added later in the checkout.Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.Buy articleGet time limited or full article access on ReadCube.$32.00All prices are NET prices.All the data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its files. The data that support the plots within this paper are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.Ross, R. T. &amp; Nozik, A. J. Efficiency of hot-carrier solar energy converters. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 3813–3818 (1982).&nbsp;&nbsp;Shockley, W. &amp; Queisser, H. J. Detailed balance limit of efficiency of p-n junction solar cells. J. Appl. Phys. 32, 510–519 (1961).&nbsp;&nbsp;Dimmock, J. A. R., Day, S., Smith, K., Kauer, M. &amp; Heffernan, J. Demonstration of a hot-carrier photovoltaic cell. Prog. Photovolt. 22, 151–160 (2014).&nbsp;&nbsp;Nguyen, D.-T. et al. Quantitative experimental assessment of hot carrier-enhanced solar cells at room temperature. Nat. Energy 3, 236–241 (2018).&nbsp;&nbsp;Hirst, L. C., Walters, R. J., Fuhrer, M. F. &amp; Ekins-Daukes, N. J. Experimental demonstration of hot-carrier photocurrent in an InGaAs quantum well solar cell. Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 231115 (2014).&nbsp;&nbsp;Rodière, J. et al. Experimental evidence of hot carriers solar cell operation in multi-quantum wells heterostructures. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 183901 (2015).&nbsp;&nbsp;Yao, Y. &amp; König, D. Comparison of bulk material candidates for hot carrier absorber. Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 140, 422–427 (2015).&nbsp;&nbsp;Conibeer, C. J. et al. Slowing of carrier cooling in hot carrier solar cells. Thin Solid Films 516, 6948–6953 (2008).&nbsp;&nbsp;Gibelli, F., Lombez, L. &amp; Guillemoles, J.-F. Accurate radiation temperature and chemical potential from quantitative photoluminescence analysis of hot carrier populations. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 29, 06LT02 (2016).&nbsp;&nbsp;Ryan, J. F. et al. Time-resolved photoluminescence of two-dimensional hot carriers in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures. Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 1841–1844 (1984).&nbsp;&nbsp;Le Bris, A. et al. Thermalisation rate study of GaSb-based heterostructures by continuous wave photoluminescence and their potential as hot carrier solar cell absorbers. Energy Environ. Sci. 5, 6225–6232 (2012).&nbsp;&nbsp;Hirst, L. C. et al. Hot carriers in quantum wells for photovoltaic efficiency enhancement. IEEE J. Photovolt. 4, 244–252 (2014).&nbsp;&nbsp;Hirst, L. C. et al. Enhanced hot-carrier effects in InAlAs/InGaAs quantum wells. IEEE J. Photovolt. 4, 1526–1531 (2014).&nbsp;&nbsp;Ferry, D. K. In search of a true hot carrier solar cell. Semicond. Sci. Technol. 34, 044001 (2019).&nbsp;&nbsp;Whiteside, V. R. et al. The role of intervalley scattering in hot carrier transfer and extraction in type-II InAs/AlAsSb quantum well solar cells. Semicond. Sci. Technol. 34, 094001 (2019).&nbsp;&nbsp;Clady, R. et al. Interplay between the hot phonon effect and intervalley scattering on the cooling rate of hot carriers in GaAs and InP. Prog. Photovolt. 20, 82–92 (2012).&nbsp;&nbsp;Grann, E. D., Tsen, K. T. &amp; Ferry, D. K. Non-equilibrium phonon dynamics and electron distribution functions in InP and InAs. Phys. Rev. B 53, 9847–9851 (1996).&nbsp;&nbsp;Lugli, P. Non-equilibrium longitudinal-optical phonon effects in GaAs-AlGaAs quantum wells. Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 716–719 (1987).&nbsp;&nbsp;Prabhu, S. S., Vengurlekar, A. S., Roy, S. K. &amp; Shah, J. Non-equilibrium dynamics of hot carrier and hot phonons in CdSe and GaAs. Phys. Rev. B 51, 14233–14246 (1995).&nbsp;&nbsp;Gunn, J. B. Microwave oscillations of current in III-V semiconductors. Solid State Commun. 1, 88–91 (1963).&nbsp;&nbsp;Ridley, B. K. &amp; Watkins, T. B. The possibility of negative resistance effects in semiconductors. Proc. Phys. Soc. 78, 293–304 (1961).&nbsp;&nbsp;Ayubi-Moak, J. S. et al. Simulation of ultra-sub-micron-gate In0.52Al0.48As/In0.75Ga0.25As/In0.52Al0.48As pseudomorphic HEMTs using a full-band Monte Carlo simulator. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 54, 2327–2338 (2007).&nbsp;&nbsp;Akis, R. et al. Full-band cellular Monte Carlo simulations of terahertz high electron mobility transistors. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 20, 384201 (2008).&nbsp;&nbsp;Rosenwaks, Y. et al. Hot-carrier cooling in GaAs: quantum wells versus bulk. Phys. Rev. B. 48, 14675–14678 (1993).&nbsp;&nbsp;Wurfel, P. The chemical potential of radiation. J. Phys. Chem. C 15, 3967–3985 (1982).&nbsp;Murdin, B. N. et al. Direct observation of the LO phonon bottleneck in wide GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs quantum wells. Phys. Rev. B 55, 5171–5176 (1997).&nbsp;&nbsp;Conibeer., G. J. et al. Progress on hot carrier cells. Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 93, 713–719 (2009).&nbsp;&nbsp;Conibeer, G. J. et al. Modelling of hot carrier solar cell absorbers. Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 94, 1516–1521 (2010).&nbsp;&nbsp;Welland, I. &amp; Ferry, D. K. Electron transport in the solar-relevant InAlAs. Semicond. Sci. Technol. 34, 064003 (2019).&nbsp;&nbsp;Esmaielpour, H. et al. Effect of occupation of the excited states and phonon broadening on the determination of the hot carrier temperature from CW photoluminescence in InGaAsP quantum well absorbers. Prog. Photovolt. 25, 782–790 (2017).&nbsp;&nbsp;Ferry, D. K. Semiconductors Sec. 10.4, 11.4.4 (Macmillan, 1991).The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation ECCS program through grant no. ECCS-1610062. This work was performed under the umbrella of the Oklahoma Photovoltaics Research Institute (OKPVRI) and the Center for Quantum Research and Technology (CQRT) at the University of Oklahoma.The authors declare no competing interestsPublisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Supplementary Figs. 1−6, discussion and refs. 1–2.Esmaielpour, H., Dorman, K.R., Ferry, D.K. et al. Exploiting intervalley scattering to harness hot carriers in III–V solar cells.Nat Energy 5, 336–343 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0602-0Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable linkSorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.Copy to clipboardProvided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative20 Apr 2020AdvertisementSign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

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Exploiting intervalley scattering to harness hot carriers in III–V solar cells - Nature Energy

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