Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Multijunction Solar Cells Toward the Multicolor Limit

TL;DR

This paper develops a thermodynamic framework for multijunction TMD solar cells, revealing efficiency limits, optical constraints, and practical design targets for approaching the multicolor limit.

Contribution

It introduces a unified model for realistic multijunction photovoltaics, quantifies penalties, and maps TMD bandgaps to device design strategies.

Findings

Full concentration ladders approach 84.5% efficiency at N=50

TMD window limits efficiency to ~63.4% at N=50

Optimal N=5 ladder with specific bandgaps identified

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and other van der Waals (vdW) semiconductors enable transfer-printed, lattice-mismatch-free stacking of many photovoltaic junctions, motivating a re-examination of multijunction detailed-balance limits under realistic material and optical constraints. Here, we develop a unified thermodynamic framework for a multijunction photovoltaic device, which can define a clear set of device-window constraints, optical boundary conditions, and luminescence/entropy penalties and therefore define how closely any realistic multijunction photovoltaic device can approach multicolor limit. By applying it to a conservative TMD bandgap window (1.0-2.1~eV), we show that the accessible bandgap window imposes a large-junction number (N) efficiency limit: under full concentration, unconstrained ladders approach 84.5% at N=50, whereas the TMD window plateaus near 63.4%. This efficiency plateau is set by photons outside the bandgaps, so radiative quality and optics dominate beyond N=5 junctions for realistic transfer-printed device stacks. We identify an experimentally achievable N=5 ladder Eg~(2.10,1.78,1.50,1.24, 1.00)eV and map each rung to candidate vdW/TMD absorbers. Using reciprocity and luminescence thermodynamics, we quantify penalties from finite external radiative efficiency, two-sided emission, and luminescent coupling, and introduce the upward-emitted luminescence power as an indicator of entropy-loss proxy. Incorporating excitonic absorptance and nanophotonic thickness bounds yields practical thickness and light-management targets for transfer-printed stacks. Finally, inserting an idealized nonreciprocal multijunction model into the reciprocity-optimized ladders provides conservative efficiency advantage estimates, which are consistent with negligible benefit for single junctions but measurable efficiency gains for multijunction TMD devices.