Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study
Abstract
Non-radiative recombination plays an important role in the performance of optoelectronic semiconductor devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes. Most textbook examples assume that the recombination process occurs through a single defect level, where one electron and one hole are captured and recombined. Based on this simple picture, conventional wisdom is that only defect levels near the center of the bandgap can be effective recombination centers. Here, we present a new two-level recombination mechanism: first, one type of carrier is captured through a defect level forming a metastable state; then the local defect configuration rapidly changes to a stable state, where the other type of carrier is captured and recombined through another defect level. This novel mechanism is applied to the recombination center in CdTe. We show that this two-level process can significantly increase the recombination rate (by three orders of magnitude) in agreement with experiments. We expect that this two-level recombination process can exist in a wide range of semiconductors, so its effect should be carefully examined in characterizing optoelectronic materials.
- Authors:
-
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Chinese Academy of Science, Suzhou (China)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1239645
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1379095
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/JA-5K00-65022
Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308; AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 6; Related Information: Scientific Reports; Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; two-level recombination; theory; CdTe
Citation Formats
Yang, Ji -Hui, Shi, Lin, Wang, Lin -Wang, and Wei, Su -Huai. Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1038/srep21712.
Yang, Ji -Hui, Shi, Lin, Wang, Lin -Wang, & Wei, Su -Huai. Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21712
Yang, Ji -Hui, Shi, Lin, Wang, Lin -Wang, and Wei, Su -Huai. 2016.
"Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21712. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1239645.
@article{osti_1239645,
title = {Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study},
author = {Yang, Ji -Hui and Shi, Lin and Wang, Lin -Wang and Wei, Su -Huai},
abstractNote = {Non-radiative recombination plays an important role in the performance of optoelectronic semiconductor devices such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes. Most textbook examples assume that the recombination process occurs through a single defect level, where one electron and one hole are captured and recombined. Based on this simple picture, conventional wisdom is that only defect levels near the center of the bandgap can be effective recombination centers. Here, we present a new two-level recombination mechanism: first, one type of carrier is captured through a defect level forming a metastable state; then the local defect configuration rapidly changes to a stable state, where the other type of carrier is captured and recombined through another defect level. This novel mechanism is applied to the recombination center in CdTe. We show that this two-level process can significantly increase the recombination rate (by three orders of magnitude) in agreement with experiments. We expect that this two-level recombination process can exist in a wide range of semiconductors, so its effect should be carefully examined in characterizing optoelectronic materials.},
doi = {10.1038/srep21712},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1239645},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
issn = {2045-2322},
number = ,
volume = 6,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Feb 16 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Tue Feb 16 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}
Web of Science
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