Affiliation:
1. Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials University of Groningen Nijenborgh 4 9747 AG Groningen The Netherlands
2. CDL for Multi-Scale Process Modeling of Semiconductor Devices and Sensors at the Institute for Microelectronics TU Wien Gusshausstrasse 27-29 1040 Vienna Austria
Abstract
The hot carrier solar cell (HCSC) concept has been proposed to overcome the Shockley Queisser limit of a single p–n junction solar cell by harvesting carriers before they have lost their surplus energy. A promising family of materials for these purposes is metal halide perovskites (MHP). MHPs have experimentally shown very long cooling times, the key requirement of a HCSC. By using ensemble Monte Carlo simulations, light is shed on why cooling times are found to be extended. This article concentrates on the role of thermalization in the cooling process. The role of carrier–phonon and carrier–carrier interactions in thermalization and cooling is specified, while showing how these processes depend on material parameters, such as the dielectric constant and effective mass. It is quantified how thermalization acts as a cooling mechanism via the cold background effect. The importance of a low degree of background doping is to achieve the observed extended cooling times. Herein, it is mapped out how perovskites should be tuned, their material parameters, carrier concentration, and purity, in order to realize a HCSC. It contributes to the debate on the cooling times in MHPs and the suitability of tin perovskites for HCSCs.
Subject
Electrical and Electronic Engineering,Energy Engineering and Power Technology,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials