RECOMBINATION LIFETIME IN AN INTERMEDIATE BAND STRUCTURE

摘要

Considerable interest in Quantum Dot (QD) and Intermediate Band (IB) structures has evolved in recent years principally because of the new physical properties that ensue from the modified band structure of the semiconductor material. In particular new devices may take advantage of these new properties and when applied to solar cells there is a further challenge to characterise the structure in both quantitative and qualitative terms. In this work the recombination lifetime τ_1 of carriers in the conduction and valence bands with an IB structure is determined from first principles. Analysis of the numerical solution of the derived rate equations lends itself to a qualitative analysis of the IB structure properties and the possibility of assessing structure quality.