Title: Sensitization of silicon by singlet exciton fission in tetracene

Abstract

Silicon dominates contemporary solar cell technologies. Yet when absorbing photons, silicon (like other semiconductors) wastes energy in excess of its bandgap. Reducing these thermalization losses and enabling better sensitivity to light is possible by sensitizing the silicon solar cell using singlet exciton fission, in which two excited states with triplet spin character (triplet excitons) are generated from a photoexcited state of higher energy with singlet spin character (a singlet exciton). Singlet exciton fission in the molecular semiconductor tetracene is known to generate triplet excitons that are energetically matched to the silicon bandgap. When the triplet excitons are transferred to silicon they create additional electron–hole pairs, promising to increase cell efficiencies from the single-junction limit of 29 per cent to as high as 35 per cent. In this report we reduce the thickness of the protective hafnium oxynitride layer at the surface of a silicon solar cell to just eight angstroms, using electric-field-effect passivation to enable the efficient energy transfer of the triplet excitons formed in the tetracene. The maximum combined yield of the fission in tetracene and the energy transfer to silicon is around 133 per cent, establishing the potential of singlet exciton fission to increase the efficiencies of siliconmore » solar cells and reduce the cost of the energy that they generate.« less

Authors:

Einzinger, Markus ^[1]; Wu, Tony ^[1]; Kompalla, Julia F. ^[1]; Smith, Hannah L. ^[2]; Perkinson, Collin F. ^[1]; Nienhaus, Lea ^[1]; Wieghold, Sarah ^[1]; Congreve, Daniel N. ^[3]; Kahn, Antoine ^[2]; Bawendi, Moungi G. ^[1]; Baldo, Marc A. ^[1]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
2. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
3. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Publication Date:

Wed Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2019

Research Org.:

Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Excitonics (CE); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; National Science Foundation (NSF)

OSTI Identifier:

1595459

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0012458; SC0001088; DGE-1656466

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Nature (London)

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Nature (London); Journal Volume: 571; Journal Issue: 7763; Journal ID: ISSN 0028-0836

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

42 ENGINEERING