A multiband NIR upconversion core-shell design for enhanced light harvesting of silicon solar cells

Yue Wang; Wen Xu; Haichun Liu; Yuhan Jing; Donglei Zhou; Yanan Ji; Jerker Widengren; Xue Bai; Hongwei Song

doi:10.1038/s41377-024-01661-5

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A multiband NIR upconversion core-shell design for enhanced light harvesting of silicon solar cells

Original Articles

- A multiband NIR upconversion core-shell design for enhanced light harvesting of silicon solar cells
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 13, Issue 12, Pages: 3261-3271(2024)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, 130012 Changchun, China
  2.Key Laboratory of New Energy and Rare Earth Resource Utilization of State Ethnic Affairs Commission, School of Physics and Materials Engineering, Dalian Minzu University, Dalian 116600, China
  3.Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
- Author bio：
  
  Wen Xu (xuwen@dlnu.edu.cn)
  Hongwei Song (songhw@jlu.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-024-01661-5
  CLC：
- Received：26 May 2024，
  
  Revised：08 October 2024，
  
  Accepted：2024-10-12，
  
  Published Online：25 November 2024，
  
  Published：31 December 2024
- Accepted：
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Wang, Y. et al. A multiband NIR upconversion core-shell design for enhanced light harvesting of silicon solar cells. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3261-3271 (2024).
DOI：

Wang, Y. et al. A multiband NIR upconversion core-shell design for enhanced light harvesting of silicon solar cells. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3261-3271 (2024). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-024-01661-5.

摘要

Abstract

Exploring lanthanide light upconversion (UC) has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance the near-infrared (NIR) responsive region of silicon solar cells (SSCs). However

its practical application under normal sunlight conditions has been hindered by the narrow NIR excitation bandwidth and the low UC efficiency of conventional materials. Here

we report the design of an efficient multiband UC system based on Ln

/Yb

-doped core-shell upconversion nanoparticles (Ln/Yb-UCNPs

= Ho

). In our design

ions are incorporated into distinct layers of Ln/Yb-UCNPs to function as near-infrared (NIR) absorbers across different spectral ranges. This design achieves broad multiband absorption withtin the 1100 to 2200 nm range

with an aggregated bandwidth of ~500 nm. We have identified a synthetic electron pumping (SEP) effect involving Yb

ions

facilitated by the synergistic interplay of energy transfer and cross-relaxation between Yb

and other ions Ln

(Ho

). This SEP effect enhances the UC efficiency of the nanomaterials by effectively transferring electrons from the low-excited states of Ln

to the excited state of Yb

resulting in intense Yb

luminescence at ~980 nm within the optimal response region for SSCs

thus markedly improving their overall performance. The SSCs integrated with Ln/Yb-UCNPs with multiband excitation demonstrate the largest reported NIR response range up to 2200 nm

while enabling the highest imp

rovement in absolute photovoltaic efficiency reported

with an increase of 0.87% (resulting in a total efficiency of 19.37%) under standard AM 1.5 G irradiation. Our work tackles the bottlenecks in UCNP-coupled SSCs and introduces a viable approach to extend the NIR response of SSCs.

关键词

Keywords

references

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