Current Applied Physics, Vol.18, No.6, 667-672, 2018
Photoreflectance study on the photovoltaic effect in InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell
To investigate the effect of quantum dot (QD) layers on the photovoltaic process of InAs/GaAs QD solar cell (QDSC), QD layers were embedded in conventional GaAs p-n junction SC (GaAs SC) structures. The photoreflectance (PR) was examined at different temperatures (T) and excitation light intensities (I-ex) to investigate the photovoltaic effects through observation of the Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) in the PR spectra. The evaluated the p-n junction electric fields (F-pn) of the InAs QDSC was different from that of the GaAs SC. Moreover, InAs QDSC show that the different photovoltaic behaviors compared with GaAs SC by varying I-ex and T. From these considerations, we suggest that the different photovoltaic behaviors are caused by the effect of the additional photo-carrier generation in InAs QD layers resulting in enhancement of the field screening effect in F-pn.
Keywords:InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell;Photoreflectance;Photovoltaic effect;Franz-Keldysh oscillations