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Concept
Quantum efficiency
Summary
The term quantum efficiency (QE) may apply to incident photon to converted electron (IPCE) ratio of a photosensitive device, or it may refer to the TMR effect of a Magnetic Tunnel Junction.
This article deals with the term as a measurement of a device's electrical sensitivity to light. In a charge-coupled device (CCD) or other photodetector, it is the ratio between the number of charge carriers collected at either terminal and the number of photons hitting the device's photoreactive surface. As a ratio, QE is dimensionless, but it is closely related to the responsivity, which is expressed in amps per watt. Since the energy of a photon is inversely proportional to its wavelength, QE is often measured over a range of different wavelengths to characterize a device's efficiency at each photon energy level. For typical semiconductor photodetectors, QE drops to zero for photons whose energy is below the band gap. A photographic film typically has a QE of much less than 10%, while CCDs can have a QE of well over 90% at some wavelengths.
A solar cell's quantum efficiency value indicates the amount of current that the cell will produce when irradiated by photons of a particular wavelength. If the cell's quantum efficiency is integrated over the whole solar electromagnetic spectrum, one can evaluate the amount of current that the cell will produce when exposed to sunlight. The ratio between this energy-production value and the highest possible energy-production value for the cell (i.e., if the QE were 100% over the whole spectrum) gives the cell's overall energy conversion efficiency value. Note that in the event of multiple exciton generation (MEG), quantum efficiencies of greater than 100% may be achieved since the incident photons have more than twice the band gap energy and can create two or more electron-hole pairs per incident photon.
Two types of quantum efficiency of a solar cell are often considered:
External Quantum Efficiency (EQE) is the ratio of the number of charge carriers collected by the solar cell to the number of photons of a given energy shining on the solar cell from outside (incident photons).
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