Abstract

For optimal energy conversion in photovoltaic devices (electricity to and from light) one important requirement is that the full energy of the photons is used. However, in solar cells, a single electron–hole pair of specific energy is generated when the incoming photon energy is above a certain threshold, with the excess energy being lost to heat. In the so-called quantum-cutting process, a high-energy photon can be divided into two, or more, photons of lower energy. Such manipulation of photon quantum size can then very effectively increase the overall efficiency of a device. In the current work, we demonstrate (space-separated) photon cutting by silicon nanocrystals, in which nearby Er³⁺ ions and neighbouring nanocrystals are used to detect this effect.

1. Van der Waals–Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65, NL-1018 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2. Center for Electronics, Opto-electronics and Telecommunications, University of The Algarve, Faro, Portugal
3. A. F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, RAS, St Petersburg, Russia

Correspondence to: D. Timmerman¹ e-mail: dtimmerm@science.uva.nl

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