Enabling high efficiency photovoltaics: from novel materials to effective devices

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Intermediate band (IB) materials are a new class of materials that have been actively sought for twenty years. They have the potential to radically improve the efficiency of photovoltaics and to make effective and inexpensive infrared photodetectors. When the benefits of intermediate band solar cells (IBSC's) were first quantified in 1997, no IB materials were known. Twenty years later, several families of IB materials have been developed, but none has yet demonstrated the material properties required for high efficiency IBSC's. This research program is dedicated to enabling these novel materials to realize their potential, both as solar cells and as infrared photodetectors. This program has three thrusts: (1) developing new materials and architectures for IB materials and devices, (2) understanding the fundamental properties of IB materials, and (3) extending the capabilities of our IB device modeling software Simudo, the only device model capable of simulating the optical, thermal, and electrical properties of IB devices. The last five years have seen rapid developments in IB materials, with new materials and improved material properties developed at a steady pace. Precisely because there are no naturally occurring IB materials, their basic properties are in many cases not understood. This program aims to fill that gap, producing fundamental science advances on the nature and properties intermediate bands. It will use these insights to improve existing IB materials and to find new ones. We will also develop and optimize the device architectures to best take advantage of these new materials, a capability that we have, uniquely in the world, due to Simudo. Over the next five years this program will enable both improvements over and optimal use of existing IB materials, enabling IBSC's and IB infrared photodetectors to realize their potential. This program will train 2 PhD, 4 MSc, and additional undergraduate students in the essential techniques and skills of condensed matter physics, optoelectronics, and materials science. They will gain the tools they need to aid Canadian research and technology development.