Luminescence and chemical potential of solar cells

摘要

The transduction and conversion of radiant energy into work in a quantum process are dependant on the luminescent properties of the materials involved. Materials with photoluminescent efficiencies greater than 0.1% are likely candidates for solar cells and solar converters. The luminescent optical properties of a material are directly related to the output device parameters. The chemical potential of the incoming light is a function of the photon energy and incident radiance. The amount of work per particle, or voltage, that can be extracted by a solar converter is related to chemical potential of the excitation, which can be inferred from the photoluminescence efficiency at ambient temperature. A discussion is made as to the use and optical properties of materials such as Si and GaAs, FeS$-2$/, and biological and organic dyes as efficient solar quantum converter materials. Proper choice of absorber thickness as to maximize the luminescent output observed is shown to optimize solar converter performance.