Detailed balance limit efficiency of silicon intermediate band solar cells

The detailed balance method is used to study the potential of the intermediate band solar cell (IBSC), which can improve the efficiency of the Si-based solar cell with a bandgap between 1.1 eV to 1.7 eV. It shows that a crystalline silicon solar cell with an intermediate band located at 0.36 eV below the conduction band or above the valence band can reach a limiting efficiency of 54% at the maximum light concentration, improving greatly than 40.7% of the Shockley—Queisser limit for the single junction Si solar cell. The simulation also shows that the limiting efficiency of the silicon-based solar cell increases as the bandgap increases from 1.1 eV to 1.7 eV, and the amorphous Si solar cell with a bandgap of 1.7 eV exhibits a radiative limiting efficiency of 62.47%, having a better potential.