Efficiency Study of PbTe/CdTe Core/Shell Quantum Dots Solar Cells

In this work we theoretically study how to optimize the efficiency of an intermediate band solar cell based on IV-VI PbTe/CdTe semiconductor materials. We focus our attention on how control structural parameters, such as the height and radius in cylindrical quantum dots and the radius in spherical quantum dots to obtain the inter and intraband transition energies that provide the highest efficiency values of the solar cell. The calculation of the energy levels, the selection rules for transitions energies were performed using the 4×4 k.p Kane-Dimmok Hamiltonian.