High-efficiency carrier multiplication through direct photogeneration of multi-excitons via virtual single-exciton states

Nature Physics

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 189-194

  Schaller, Richard D ^a   Agranovich, Vladimir M ^b,c   Klimov, Victor I ^a  

^a LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY   (United States)

^b INSTITUTE OF SPECTROSCOPY   (Russian Federation)

^c UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CADMIUM COMPOUNDS; II-VI SEMICONDUCTORS; IV-VI SEMICONDUCTORS; LEAD COMPOUNDS; NANOCRYSTALS; PARTICLE BEAMS; PHOTONS; POPULATION STATISTICS; SELENIUM COMPOUNDS; SEMICONDUCTOR QUANTUM DOTS; SPECTRAL DENSITY; SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSIS;

CARRIER MULTIPLICATION; COULOMB COUPLINGS; ENTANGLED PHOTONS; LOW-THRESHOLD LASERS; NANOCRYSTAL QUANTUM DOTS; PBSE NANOCRYSTALS; PHOTOCATALYTIC DEVICES; SEMICONDUCTOR NANOCRYSTALS;

EXCITONS;

EID: 84896474704     PISSN: 17452473     EISSN: 17452481     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1038/nphys151     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. Yu, G., Gao, J., Hummelen, J. C.,Wudl, F. & Heeger, A. J. Polymer photovoltaic cells: Enhanced efficiencies via a network of internal donor-acceptor heterojunctions. Science 270, 1789-1791 (1995).
2. Grätzel, M. Photoelectrochemical cells. Nature 414, 338-344 (2001).
3. Landsberg, P. T., Nussbaumer, H. &Willeke, G. Band-band impact ionization and solar cell efficiency. J. Appl. Phys. 74, 1451-1452 (1993).
4. Kolodinski, S., Werner, J. H., Wittchen, T. & Queisser, H. J. Quantum efficiencies exceeding unity due to impact ionization in silicon solar cells. Appl. Phys. Lett. 63, 2405-2407 (1993).
5. Spirkl, W. & Ries, H. Luminescence and efficiency of an ideal photovoltaic cell with charge carrier multiplication. Phys. Rev. B 52, 11319-11325 (1995).
6. Nozik, A. J. Quantum dot solar cells. Physica E 14, 115-120 (2002).
7. Califano, M., Zunger, A. & Franceschetti, A. Direct carrier multiplication due to inverse Auger scattering in CdSe quantum dots. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 2409-2411 (2004).
8. 1-x Ge alloys. J. Appl. Phys. 83, 4213-4221 (1998).
9. Schaller, R. D. & Klimov, V. I. High efficiency carrier multiplication in PbSe nanocrystals: Implications for solar energy conversion. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 186601 (2004).
10. Ellingson, R. et al. Highly efficient multiple exciton generation in colloidal PbSe and PbS quantum dots. Nano Lett. 5, 865-871 (2005).
11. Schaller, R. D., Petruska, M. A. & Klimov, V. I. The effect of electronic structure on carrier multiplication efficiency: A comparative study of PbSe and CdSe nanocrystals. Appl. Phys. Lett. (in the press).
12. Murray, C. B., Norris, D. J. & Bawendi, M. G. Synthesis and characterization of nearly monodisperse CdE (E = S, Se, Te) semiconductor nanocrystallites. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 115, 8706-8715 (1993).
13. Murray, C. B. et al. Colloidal synthesis of nanocrystals and nanocrystal superlattices. IBM J. Res. Dev. 45, 47-56 (2001).
14. Klimov, V. I. Optical nonlinearities and ultrafast carrier dynamics in semiconductor nanocrystals. J. Phys. Chem. B 104, 6112-6123 (2000).
15. Klimov, V. I. & McBranch, D. W. Femtosecond 1P-to-1S electron relaxation in strongly confined semiconductor nanocrystals. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4028-4031 (1998).
16. Landsberg, P. T. Recombination in Semiconductors (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1991).
17. Klimov, V. I., Mikhailovsky, A. A., McBranch, D. W., Leatherdale, C. A. & Bawendi, M. G. Quantization of multiparticle Auger rates in semiconductor quantum dots. Science 287, 1011-1013 (2000).
18. Achermann, M., Hollingsworth, J. A. & Klimov, V. I. Multiexcitons confined within a subexcitonic volume: Spectroscopic and dynamical signatures of neutral and charged biexcitons in ultrasmall semiconductor nanocrystals. Phys. Rev. B 68, 245302 (2003).
19. Shionoya, H., Saito, H., Hanamura, E. & Akimoto, O. Anisotropic excitonic molecules in CdS and CdSe. Solid State Commun. 12, 223-226 (1973).
20. Htoon, H., Cox, P. J. & Klimov, V. I. Structure of excited-state transitions of individual semiconductor nanocrystals probed by photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 187402 (2004).
21. Crooker, S. A., Barrick, T., Hollingsworth, J. A. & Klimov, V. I. Multiple temperature regimes of radiative decay in CdSe nanocrystal quantum dots: Intrinsic limits to the dark-exciton lifetime. Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 2793-2795 (2003).
22. Wehrenberg, B. L., Wang, C. J. & Guyot-Sionnest, P. Interband and intraband optical studies of PbSe colloidal quantum dots. J. Phys. Chem. B 106, 10634-10640 (2002).
23. Du, H. et al. Optical properties of colloidal PbSe nanocrystals. Nano Lett. 2, 1321-1324 (2002).