A hot-carrier solar cell with optical energy selective contacts

The hot-carrier solar cell (HC-SC) is an ambitious approach to solar energy conversion which in principle can achieve high efficiency (84%) from a single bandgap semiconductor. Here we propose a method of utilising hot-carriers within a photovoltaic device in which energy is extracted optically from a hot-carrier distribution rather than through the usual approach of electrical conduction. Depending on the optical extraction rate, the concept proposed here may attain an upper efficiency approaching that of the conventional HC-SC. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3636401]