稀土上转换发光材料在太阳能电池中的应用

传统的太阳能电池只能吸收能量大于半导体能隙的光子,能量小于半导体能隙的光子因为无法被吸收而被浪费掉,这一部分的能量损失高达50%。将上转换发光材料应用于太阳能电池中,将增加电池对能量小于半导体能隙的光子的吸收,极大提高太阳能电池的光电转换效率。稀土掺杂的上转换发光材料以其能够吸收红外光转换为可见光的独特性质,受到了国内外研究学者的广泛关注。这篇文章介绍了上转换发光材料的发光机制,以及近些年来稀土上转换发光材料在太阳能电池领域中的应用,包括硅基太阳能电池,染料敏化太阳能电池及钙钛矿太阳能电池。对稀土上转换发光材料在太阳能电池中应用所面临的困难以及潜在的解决方案做了总结与展望,有利于后续研究对稀土上转换发光材料在太阳能电池上的应用方向的探索,为提高太阳能电池的光电转化效率提供新思路,推进太阳能电池的大规模市场化应用。

Application of rare-earth-doped upconversion materials in solar cells

Conventional solar cells are unable to absorb photons with energy less than the semiconductor band gap,resulting in an energy loss up to 50%.The application of up-converting phosphor in solar cells will increase the absorption of photons whose energy is less than semiconductor gap,thus significantly improving the photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar cells.Upconversion materials are promising in this problem by absorbing infrared light and converting it into visible light,which can greatly improve the light harvesting efficiency of the devices.In this paper,we have reviewed the work on the application of rare-earth-doped upconversion materials in solar cells in recent years,including silicon-based solar cells,dye-sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells.Our work offers fundamental insights into the subsequent research on the application of upconversion materials in solar cells,and points to another tunable parameter for further optimization of realistic renewable energy devices.