Potential of Mn doped In1−xGaxN for implementing intermediate band solar cells

In this paper we propose that the incorporation of Mn into In1−xGaxN can produce material suitable for intermediate band (IB) solar cells. For x≈0.22 we predicted that the resulting material would have a total bandgap of 1.11 eV, with the IB located at about 0.74 eV from the valence band (VB). The resulting limiting efficiency is 53.4% (maximum light concentration and assuming that the sun is a black body at 6000 K and the cell operates at 300 K). The use of Mn offers an additional advantage of high solubility in the semiconductor host. The concentration of Mn can exceed the critical value of about 6×1019 cm-3, which is considered to be the threshold to inhibit non-radiative recombination and create a true intermediate band.