Photon Green´s functions for a consistent theory of absorption and emission in nanostructure-based solar cell devices

The light-matter interaction in planar nanostructures with applications in photovoltaic devices is investigated by means of a microscopic quantum-kinetic theory based on the non-equilibrium Green´s function formalism. The Dyson and Keldysh equations for the Green´s functions of photons are solved numerically. The result is used to couple the optical and electronic degrees of freedom via respective self-energies. The numerical approach for the solution of the optical problem is verified against a standard transfer-matrix formalism and applied to the fluorescent emission of colloidal quantum dots in microresonator cavities and the generation of dark- and photocurrent in ultra-thin-absorber solar cells.