Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells
Hot carrier solar cells are a concept of photovoltaic devices, which offers the opportunity to harvest solar energy beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit. Unlike conventional photovoltaic devices, hot carrier solar cells convert excess kinetic energy into useful electrical power rather than losing it t...
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EDP Sciences
2024-01-01
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| Series: | EPJ Photovoltaics |
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| Online Access: | https://www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2024/01/pv20240018/pv20240018.html |
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| author | Boyer-Richard Soline Fan Fei Chevalier Nicolas Létoublon Antoine Beck Alexandre Tavernier Karine Rani Shalu Suchet Daniel Cattoni Andrea Lombez Laurent Durand Olivier |
| author_facet | Boyer-Richard Soline Fan Fei Chevalier Nicolas Létoublon Antoine Beck Alexandre Tavernier Karine Rani Shalu Suchet Daniel Cattoni Andrea Lombez Laurent Durand Olivier |
| author_sort | Boyer-Richard Soline |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Hot carrier solar cells are a concept of photovoltaic devices, which offers the opportunity to harvest solar energy beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit. Unlike conventional photovoltaic devices, hot carrier solar cells convert excess kinetic energy into useful electrical power rather than losing it through thermalisation mechanisms. To extract the carriers while they are still “hot”, efficient energy-selective contacts must be developed. In previous studies, the presence of the hot carrier population in a p-i-n solar cell based on a single InGaAsP quantum well on InP substrate at room temperature has been demonstrated by means of complementary optical and electrical measurements, leading to an operating condition for this device beyond the limit for classical device operation. This result allows to design a new generation of devices to increase the hot carrier conversion contribution. In this work, we study InGaAs/AlInAs type II heterojunction as a selective contact for a future hot carrier solar cell device epitaxially grown on (001) oriented InP substrate. Two p-i-n solar cells have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy on InP. The absorber is a 50 nm-thick InGaAs layer surrounded by AlInAs barriers, all lattice-matched to InP. Two architectures are compared, the first with two symmetrical AlInAs barriers and the second with a single InGaAs quantum well in the center of the n-side barrier to allow electron tunneling across the barrier. Electrical characteristics under laser illumination with two different wavelengths have been measured to investigate the effect of the selective contact compared to the barrier. This preliminary study of InGaAs/AlInAs-based selective contacts show that such III–V combination is adapted for a future hot carrier solar cell in the InP technology. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-0f8dbb104f4d427c87f06cd93aaec78b |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2105-0716 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | EDP Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | EPJ Photovoltaics |
| spelling | doaj-art-0f8dbb104f4d427c87f06cd93aaec78b2025-08-20T02:19:16ZengEDP SciencesEPJ Photovoltaics2105-07162024-01-01153810.1051/epjpv/2024031pv20240018Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cellsBoyer-Richard Soline0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0880-0999Fan Fei1Chevalier Nicolas2Létoublon Antoine3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3655-5943Beck Alexandre4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9030-4301Tavernier Karine5Rani Shalu6Suchet Daniel7https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4034-1016Cattoni Andrea8https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6402-0911Lombez Laurent9Durand Olivier10Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Université de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082IPVF SAS, UMR IPVF 9006, CNRS, Ecole Polytech, Inst Polytech ParisIPVF SAS, UMR IPVF 9006, CNRS, Ecole Polytech, Inst Polytech ParisUniv Paris Saclay, Univ Paris Sud, CNRSLPCNO, INSA CNRS UPSUniversité de Rennes, INSA Rennes, CNRS, Institut FOTON - UMR 6082Hot carrier solar cells are a concept of photovoltaic devices, which offers the opportunity to harvest solar energy beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit. Unlike conventional photovoltaic devices, hot carrier solar cells convert excess kinetic energy into useful electrical power rather than losing it through thermalisation mechanisms. To extract the carriers while they are still “hot”, efficient energy-selective contacts must be developed. In previous studies, the presence of the hot carrier population in a p-i-n solar cell based on a single InGaAsP quantum well on InP substrate at room temperature has been demonstrated by means of complementary optical and electrical measurements, leading to an operating condition for this device beyond the limit for classical device operation. This result allows to design a new generation of devices to increase the hot carrier conversion contribution. In this work, we study InGaAs/AlInAs type II heterojunction as a selective contact for a future hot carrier solar cell device epitaxially grown on (001) oriented InP substrate. Two p-i-n solar cells have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy on InP. The absorber is a 50 nm-thick InGaAs layer surrounded by AlInAs barriers, all lattice-matched to InP. Two architectures are compared, the first with two symmetrical AlInAs barriers and the second with a single InGaAs quantum well in the center of the n-side barrier to allow electron tunneling across the barrier. Electrical characteristics under laser illumination with two different wavelengths have been measured to investigate the effect of the selective contact compared to the barrier. This preliminary study of InGaAs/AlInAs-based selective contacts show that such III–V combination is adapted for a future hot carrier solar cell in the InP technology.https://www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2024/01/pv20240018/pv20240018.htmlhot carrier solar cellsiii-v quantum wellselective contactinp |
| spellingShingle | Boyer-Richard Soline Fan Fei Chevalier Nicolas Létoublon Antoine Beck Alexandre Tavernier Karine Rani Shalu Suchet Daniel Cattoni Andrea Lombez Laurent Durand Olivier Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells EPJ Photovoltaics hot carrier solar cells iii-v quantum well selective contact inp |
| title | Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| title_full | Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| title_fullStr | Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| title_full_unstemmed | Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| title_short | Preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| title_sort | preliminary study of selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells |
| topic | hot carrier solar cells iii-v quantum well selective contact inp |
| url | https://www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2024/01/pv20240018/pv20240018.html |
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