Overcoming the Temperature Effect on a Single Junction and Intermediate Band Solar Cells Using Optical Filter and SECs

The performance of electronic devices, especially solar cells, at high temperatures is of primary interest to researchers. The design and construction of high-efficiency solar cells face some difficulties. One of these difficulties is the rising temperature, thus solar cells temperature assessment is essential to guarantee high performance. Normally, rising temperature, in solar cells, is associated with the normal ambient temperature and the produced internal temperature due to power dissipation. Accordingly, this investigation aims to reduce the effect of applied temperature from both sources. To reduce the destructive effect, the authors design a simple construction model that utilizes SiO2 and Si3N4 as a filtering layer. The outcomes of this study show that the power conversion is optimum. Si and SiC Solar cells both with and without using a filter are evaluated and compared. Finally, enhancement in power conversion efficiency and other characteristics has been investigated. The intermediate band solar cells were evaluated with both internal and external temperature effects. To reduce the internal temperature, the authors utilized a novel method for extracting the hot carriers from different energy levels by using multilevel energy selective contacts (ESCs). It was shown that ESCs promote efficiency and break the Shockley-Queisser limit.