Lattice-mismatched and twisted multi-layered materials for efficient solar cells

TL;DR

This paper explores how layered, lattice-mismatched or twisted 2D materials can serve as more efficient solar cell absorbers by leveraging miniband structures and impact ionization, especially under concentrated sunlight.

Contribution

It extends the Shockley-Queisser model to account for miniband splitting in layered materials, revealing potential efficiency improvements in solar cells.

Findings

Efficiency is significantly enhanced by miniband formation.

Impact ionization plays a crucial role in boosting efficiency.

Concentrated sunlight further increases the potential efficiency gains.

Abstract

We argue that alternating-layer structures of lattice mismatched or misaligned (twisted) atomically-thin layers should be expected to be more efficient absorbers of the broad-spectrum of solar radiation than the bulk material of each individual layer. In such mismatched layer-structures the conduction and valence bands of the bulk material, split into multiple minibands separated by minigaps confined to a small-size emerging Brillouin zone due to band-folding. We extended the Shockley-Queisser approach to calculate the photovoltaic efficiency for a band split into minibands of bandwidth $\Delta E$ and mini-gaps $\delta G$ to model the case when such structures are used as solar cells. We find a significant efficiency enhancement due to impact ionization processes, especially in the limit of small but non-zero $\delta G$, and a dramatic increase when fully concentrated sun-light is used.