Luminescence nanocrystals for solar cell enhancement

Semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) prepared by wet-chemical routes have been proposed as an attractive candidate for fabrication of the third-generation thin-film solar cells due to their quantum confinement effects and excellent dispersion ability in polymer films. However, to date, a solar cell incorporating semiconductor NCs in the photoactive layer still has rather low efficiency due to the low carrier mobility of the non-continued NC phase and the possible radiative recombination in NCs. To avoid these disadvantages, NCs have been proposed and applied as a luminescent species in a passive photon converting layer to modify the solar spectrum before the light enters the photovoltaic device. Photon conversion processes, including up-conversion, down-conversion, and down-shifting, have been observed in various colloidal NC samples and have great potential to enhance photovoltaic performance when applied to the existing single-junction solar cells or narrow-band molecular-based devices.