Energy selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells

Double barrier resonant tunnelling structures consisting of silicon quantum dots (QDs) in silicon dioxide (SiO2SiO2) matrix have been studied for Energy Selective Contacts for Hot Carrier solar cell. A single layer of silicon QDs has been fabricated by high temperature annealing of SiO2SiO2/ Si-rich oxide (SRO)/SiO2SiO2 layers deposited by RF magnetron sputtering. Compositional analysis of SRO films obtained with different sputtering target has been accurately measured with Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. Size-controlled growth of Si QDs has been studied with photoluminescence measurements which demonstrate that QD sizes can be controlled with SRO layer thickness. In addition, resonant tunnelling behaviour of SiO2SiO2/ Si QD/SiO2SiO2 structures has been investigated.