PROJECT TITLE :

Resonant Thermotunneling Design for High-Performance Single-Junction Quantum-Well Solar Cells

ABSTRACT:

During a material system displaying a negligible valence band offset, which enables the sleek transport of holes, we show that the conduction band (CB) confinement energies and barrier thicknesses will be designed to favor a sequential thermionic promotion and resonant tunneling of electrons to the CB continuum ensuing in an overall faster carrier collection. Using 1 eV dilute nitride semiconductor quantum wells that are embedded in standard GaAs solar cells, we gift sensible energy-level engineering styles that significantly facilitate the collection of all photogenerated carriers inside many picoseconds (ten$^-12$  s) from deep quantum wells rather than several nanoseconds, as it is the case for typical designs. A preliminary evaluation of a GaAs/GaAsN multiquantum well device that incorporates such thermotunneling style indicates potential for significant efficiency improvement over a standard GaAs solar cell, so surpassing the Shockley–Queisser potency limit for a single-junction device.