Study of quantum dots on solar energy applications

Abstract: This thesis studies p-i-n GaAs solar cells with self-assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) inserted. The values of this work lie in three aspects. First, by comparing the cell performance with QDs in the i-region and the n-region, the photocurrent (PC) production from QDs by thermal activation and/or intermediate band (IB) absorption is proved to be much lower in efficiency than tunneling. Second, the efficiency of PC production from QDs, characterized by PC spectrum, is helpful to design QD-based photodetectors. Third, closely spaced InAs QD layers allow a strong inter-layer tunneling, leading to an effective PC production from QD deep states, potential for solar cell application. Fourth, from the temperature-dependent PC spectra the minority photohole thermal escape is found to be dominant on PC production from QDs in the n-region. The thermal activation energy reflects the potential variations formed by electron filling in QDs.Apart from InAs QDs, this thesis also explores the blinking correlation between two colloidal CdSe QDs. For QD distance of 1 µm or less, there is a bunched correlation at delay ? = 0, meaning that the two QDs blink synchronously. Such correlation disappears gradually as QD distance increases. The correlation is possibly caused by the stimulated emission between the two nearby QDs.