Technology-compatible hot carrier solar cell with energy selective hot carrier absorber and carrier-selective contacts

We propose a hot carrier solar cell based on epitaxial growth of a quantum well superlattice and adjacent contact barriers. The concept fulfills required electronic, optical, and several phononic criteria. The first superlattice miniband determines the absorption threshold. The second miniband with appropriate energy width and position provides energy selectivity in situ; contacts are optimized for carrier selectivity exclusively. Electronic transport properties were investigated including elastic random electron-electron scattering, random layer thickness deviation, and illumination as differential absorption per quantum well using a Monte-Carlo code. Carrier extraction probability and energy selectivity strongly suggest a practical implementation of the proposed concept. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4757979]