Radiative and bulk photovoltaic efficiencies of devices based on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide alloys

Abstract

Abstract In this study the photovoltaic potential of two-dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide alloys is evaluated by considering several efficiency metrics, absorber layer thicknesses, light-trapping strategies, and both radiative and bulk photovoltaic effects across different photon energy ranges, from monochromatic spectra to the full AM1.5G solar spectrum. The results using the full solar AM1.5G spectrum and light-trapping show that films as thin as 1 nm (10 nm) could achieve up to 14% (29%) power conversion efficiency with the radiative photovoltaic effect, whereas the internal efficiencies are larger: up to ~ 33% (~ 58%). From the results, the bulk photovoltaic effect cannot realistically achieve efficiencies comparable to conventional radiative photovoltaic effect with the typical material parameters, and its performance remains significantly below the Shockley–Queisser limit. For both photovoltaic effects, the monochromatic efficiencies exceed those computed for the full solar AM1.5G spectrum in a wide range of energies, and the global efficiency is smaller than the other efficiency metrics.