ALL-SILICON TANDEM CELLS BASED ON "ARTIFICIAL" SEMICONDUCTOR SYNTHESISED USING SILICON QUANTUM DOTS IN A DIELECTRIC MATRIX

Abstract

To reach its most competitive long-term position, photovoltaics must push towards ever-increasing energy conversion efficiency while retaining low areal production costs. The most developed approach for improving this efficiency beyond that of a standard cell is to use a tandem stack of cells, with each cell in the stack having a different bandgap. Our group is exploring the use of nanostructural engineering to control silicon's bandgap in quantum-confined structures to develop such tandem stacks based entirely on crystalline silicon and its compounds with oxygen, nitrogen and carbon. Recent experimental and theoretical progress is outlined as are the main challenges for future work.