Study of the mechanisms of the phonon bottleneck effect in CdSe/CdS core/shell quantum dots and nanoplatelets and their application in hot carrier multi-junction solar cells

The hot carrier multi-junction solar cell (HCMJSC) is one of the promising advanced conceptual solar cells with theoretical efficiency greater than 65%, consisting of a thin top junction with a wide bandgap and a thicker junction at the bottom with a medium bandgap for absorption of high and low energy photons. The wide bandgap CdSe/CdS low-dimensional systems (e.g. quantum dots, QDs and nanoplatelets, NPLs) widely used in optoelectrical devices are expected to be an appropriate candidate for the top junction. However, the mechanisms underlying the carrier relaxation rate reduction (or phonon bottleneck effect, PBE) for HCMJSC in these material systems are not well understood so far. In this work, the carrier relaxation mechanisms in CdSe/CdS core/shell QDs and NPLs are quantitatively analyzed by calculating the thermalization coefficient (Q(th)) through steady state photoluminescence (SSPL) and picosecond-time resolved photoluminescence (ps-TRPL). A significantly extended carrier relaxation time of more than 20 ns was observed in the TRPL of QDs. This could be attributed to both the Auger reheating (AR) at the initial fast decay stage and acoustic phonon folding at the slow decay stage. For SSPL, the Q(th) value of QDs is much lower due to a 1 order of magnitude higher AR rate. A strong coupling may exist between AR and Q(th) with a high probability of PBE, where a lower Q(th) gives a higher AR rate. The AR may dominate carrier thermalization if the PBE level is high. Meanwhile, other mechanisms like acoustic phonon folding will also affect the carrier relaxation if the PBE is at a much lower level.