Physical insights into the effects of quantum dots size and temperature on efficiency of InAs/GaAs quantum dots intermediate band solar cell

The main problem of the photovoltaic conversion device is that low energy photons cannot excite charge carrier to the conduction band, so that the concept of the quantum dot solar cell is proposed in the intrinsic region of the p−i−n structure. In this work, numerical simulation has been proposed using the Matlab software. We simulate and measure the effects of quantum dots size and temperature on efficiency of GaAs p−i−n structure solar cells incorporating quantum dots (QDs) InAs under illumination. The results show that the efficiency of p−i−n solar cell depend strongly on size of QDs and temperature. •The insertion QDs in i-region of p−i−n GaAs provide the augmentation of JSC and ηmax, on the contrary we find the diminution of the VOC.•The characteristics J–V are strongly dependent on the insertion QD at different size , in which its effect is more noticeable for the small radius of QD.•For fixed the QD size the increment of temperature leads to an amelioration of the characteristic of J–V and its effect is quite significant in the augmentation of temperature.