Investigation of the open-circuit voltage in solar cells doped with quantum dots

Investigation of the open-circuit voltage in solar cells doped with quantum dots

Quantum dots (QDs) have attracted much attention for use in photovoltaic applications because of their potential for overcoming the limits of conventional single-junction devices. One problem associated with solar cells using QDs is that the open-circuit voltage (V(oc)) always decreases with the addition of QDs with respect to the reference cell without QDs. Here, we report the investigation of...

Polymer solar cells with enhanced open-circuit voltage and efficiency

Following the development of the bulk heterojunction1 structure, recent years have seen a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of polymer solar cells. Maximizing the open-circuit voltage in a low-bandgap polymer is one of the critical factors towards enabling high-efficiency solar cells. Study of the relation between open-circuit voltage and the energy levels of the donor/acceptor2 in bulk he...

Open-Circuit Voltage Physics in Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

We have performed computer calculations to explore effects of the p/i interface on the opencircuit voltage in a-Si:H based pin solar cells. The principal conclusions are that interface limitation can occur for values of VOC significantly below the built-in potential VBI of a cell, and that the effects can be understood in terms of thermionic emission of electrons from the intrinsic layer into t...

Quantum Dots Solar Cells

Enhanced Open-Circuit Voltage of PbS Nanocrystal Quantum Dot Solar Cells

Nanocrystal quantum dots (QD) show great promise toward improving solar cell efficiencies through the use of quantum confinement to tune absorbance across the solar spectrum and enable multi-exciton generation. Despite this remarkable potential for high photocurrent generation, the achievable open-circuit voltage (Voc) is fundamentally limited due to non-radiative recombination processes in QD ...