Victor Klimov, the scientist who led the research team, contends that their experiments prove that the phenomenon in nano-sized semiconductor crystals known as “carrier multiplication” actually exists, and isn’t just figment of some overactive imaginations or sloppy research. (http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/15709)

When a conventional solar cell absorbs a photon of light, it frees an electron to generate an electrical current. Energy in excess of the amount needed to promote an electron into a conducting state is lost as heat to atomic vibrations (phonons) in the material lattice. Through carrier multiplication, excess energy can be transferred to another electron instead of the material lattice, freeing it to generate electrical current—thereby yielding a more efficient solar cell.

Klimov and colleagues have shown that nanocrystals of certain semiconductor materials can generate more than one electron after absorbing a photon. This is partly due to strengthened interactions between electrons squeezed together within the confines of the nanoscale particles.

In 2004, Los Alamos researchers Richard Schaller and Klimov reported the first observations of strong carrier multiplication in nanosized crystals of lead selenide resulting in up to two electron-hole pairs per absorbed photon. A year later, Arthur…
By Brooks Boliek
Yaab

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