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Title: Non-radiative carrier recombination enhanced by two-level process: A first-principles study

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21712· OSTI ID:1239645
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Chinese Academy of Science, Suzhou (China)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations

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.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1239645
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1379095
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5K00-65022
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 6; Related Information: Scientific Reports; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 59 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (14)

Radiative Efficiency and Charge‐Carrier Lifetimes and Diffusion Length in Polycrystalline CdSeTe Heterostructures journal December 2019
Microscopic insight into non-radiative decay in perovskite semiconductors from temperature-dependent luminescence blinking journal April 2019
Understanding the role of selenium in defect passivation for highly efficient selenium-alloyed cadmium telluride solar cells journal May 2019
Point defect engineering in thin-film solar cells journal June 2018
Self-compensation in chlorine-doped CdTe journal June 2019
Defect interactions and the role of complexes in the CdTe solar cell absorber journal January 2017
Excitation-dependent carrier lifetime and diffusion length in bulk CdTe determined by time-resolved optical pump-probe techniques journal January 2018
Review on first-principles study of defect properties of CdTe as a solar cell absorber journal July 2016
Enhancement of photovoltaic efficiency in CdSe x Te 1− x (where 0 ⩽ x ⩽ 1): insights from density functional theory journal December 2019
Some recent advances in ab initio calculations of nonradiative decay rates of point defects in semiconductors journal September 2019
Carrier recombination mechanism at defects in wide band gap two-dimensional materials from first principles journal August 2019
Overcoming nanoscale friction barriers in transition metal dichalcogenides journal August 2017
Radiative Efficiency and Charge‐Carrier Lifetimes and Diffusion Length in Polycrystalline CdSeTe Heterostructures journal January 2020
Carrier-induced transient defect mechanism for non-radiative recombination in InGaN light-emitting devices journal April 2016

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Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
two-level recombination
theory
CdTe