Effects of carrier escape and capture processes on quantum well solar cells

Author

Tsai, Chin-Yi ; Tsai, Chin-Yao

Author_Institution

Dept. of Appl. Phys., Nat. Univ. of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung

fYear

2008

fDate

1-4 Sept. 2008

Firstpage

79

Lastpage

80

Abstract

A theoretical model is proposed to study the effects of carrier escape and capture processes on the photocurrent of quantum well solar cells (QWSCs). The results show that solar cells with very deep QWs will suffer from extremely slow escape processes and their photocurrent can be inferior to their bulk counterparts. The optimal band gap energies of QW materials for achieving the maximum photocurrent are also calculated and discussed.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; electron traps; energy gap; gallium arsenide; hole traps; indium compounds; photoconductivity; quantum well devices; semiconductor device models; semiconductor quantum wells; solar cells; GaAs-InGaAs; QWSC model; band gap energy; carrier capture process; carrier escape; photocurrent; quantum well solar cell; Absorption; Charge carrier lifetime; Laser modes; PIN photodiodes; Photoconductivity; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Quantum mechanics; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices, 2008. NUSOD '08. International Conference on

Conference_Location

Nottingham

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2307-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NUSOD.2008.4668251

Filename

4668251