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Impact of effective capture cross-section on device performance of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell

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Abstract

We have theoretically modeled the impact of effective carrier capture cross-sections on the intermediate band generation recombination process of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell (QDSC). The device characteristics are obtained from Poisson’s and continuity equations. The quantum dot (QD) occupation probability was utilized to estimate the effective capture cross-sections under different conditions. We observed that when the QDs become trap centers, the effective electron capture cross-section controls the QD recombination. Moreover, the QD recombination dominates the overall recombination process near the maximum power point (MPP) of the device. Hence, the electron capture cross-section plays a vital role in determining the performance of the QDSC. The results for n-type \(\delta \)-doped QDSCs also reported similar behavior. However, the analysis carried out for different Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination lifetimes indicated that with a decrease in SRH recombination lifetime representing the degraded barrier materials, SRH recombination becomes dominant. Hence the electron effective capture cross-section has a substantial impact on the device performance of the QDSCs for which the SRH recombination does not dominate over the intermediate band recombination at the MPP of the device.

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  1. Department of Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, 826004, India

    Ahna Sharan & Jitendra Kumar

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  1. Ahna Sharan
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  2. Jitendra Kumar
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Correspondence to Ahna Sharan.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices.

Guest edited by Slawek Sujecki, Asghar Asgari, Donati Silvano, Karin Hinzer, Weida Hu, Piotr Martyniuk, Alex Walker and Pengyan Wen.

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Sharan, A., Kumar, J. Impact of effective capture cross-section on device performance of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell. Opt Quant Electron 54, 543 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-022-03855-w

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