Identifying defect-tolerant semiconductors with high minority-carrier lifetimes: beyond hybrid lead halide perovskites
- PDF / 581,802 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 24 Downloads / 215 Views
Prospective Article
Identifying defect-tolerant semiconductors with high minority-carrier lifetimes: beyond hybrid lead halide perovskites Riley E. Brandt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA Vladan Stevanović , National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, Colorado 80401; Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA David S. Ginley, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA Tonio Buonassisi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA Address all correspondence to Riley E. Brandt, Tonio Buonassisi at [email protected]; [email protected] (Received 27 March 2015; accepted 23 April 2015)
Abstract The emergence of methyl-ammonium lead halide (MAPbX3) perovskites motivates the identification of unique properties giving rise to exceptional bulk transport properties, and identifying future materials with similar properties. Here, we propose that this “defect tolerance” emerges from fundamental electronic-structure properties, including the orbital character of the conduction and valence band extrema, the chargecarrier effective masses, and the static dielectric constant. We use MaterialsProject.org searches and detailed electronic-structure calculations to demonstrate these properties in other materials than MAPbX3. This framework of materials discovery may be applied more broadly, to accelerate discovery of new semiconductors based on emerging understanding of recent successes.
Introduction Many semiconductors have been studied over the last century for their possible use in photovoltaics (PVs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs), computing devices, sensors, and detectors. Of these, only a select few have achieved sufficient optoelectronic performance to transition into industrial manufacturing, and their identification and development have been slow and mostly empirical. Recently, high-throughput computation and a deeper understanding of the physics-based requirements for high performance have created the potential for an accelerated identification of functional materials with manufacturing potential. For example, materials screening criteria have been proposed to better focus the search for novel candidate PV materials; they include the optical band-gap energy[1,2] and abruptness of absorption onset,[3,4] in addition to boundary conditions of elemental abundance,[5] and manufacturing cost.[6,7] However, many materials have met these criteria and yet have not achieved industrially relevant conversion efficiencies (in excess of 10–15%) due to low minority-carrier lifetimes or diffusion lengths, e.g., in the case of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4,[8] SnS,[9] and others.[10] Meanwhile, PV devices have emerged based on methyl-ammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) and closely related halides (herein referred to as MAPbX3). MAPbI3 is a semiconductor, which has demonstrated exceptional minority-carrier lifetimes of 280 ns (in the
Data Loading...
