Van der Waals Materials for Atomically-Thin Photovoltaics: Promise and Outlook
Abstract
Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors provide a unique opportunity for optoelectronics due to their layered atomic structure and electronic and optical properties. To date, a majority of the application-oriented research in this field has been focused on field-effect electronics as well as photodetectors and light emitting diodes. Here we present a perspective on the use of 2D semiconductors for photovoltaic applications. We discuss photonic device designs that enable light trapping in nanometer-thickness absorber layers, and we also outline schemes for efficient carrier transport and collection. We further provide theoretical estimates of efficiency indicating that 2D semiconductors can indeed be competitive with and complementary to conventional photovoltaics, based on favorable energy bandgap, absorption, external radiative efficiency, along with recent experimental demonstrations. Photonic and electronic design of 2D semiconductor photovoltaics represents a new direction for realizing ultrathin, efficient solar cells with applications ranging from conventional power generation to portable and ultralight solar power.
Additional Information
© 2017 American Chemical Society. Received: September 22, 2017; Revised: October 10, 2017; Accepted: October 23, 2017; Published: October 23, 2017. This work is part of the "Light–Material Interactions in Energy Conversion" Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC0001293. D.J. and A.R.D. acknowledge additional support from the Space Solar Power project and the Resnick Sustainability Institute Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellowships. A.R.D. also acknowledges support in part from the Kavli Nanoscience Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. J.W. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 1144469. All the authors acknowledge support of the Space Solar Power Initiative at Caltech funded by the Northrop Grumman Corporation. The authors declare no competing financial interest.Attached Files
Submitted - 1710.08917.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 82651
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20171025-101024290
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0001293
- Space Solar Power Project
- Resnick Sustainability Institute
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- DGE-1144469
- Northrop Grumman Corporation
- Created
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2017-10-25Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Resnick Sustainability Institute, Kavli Nanoscience Institute, Space Solar Power Project