Nanostructures in Photovoltaics

Nanostructured materials offer an unprecedented degree of control of the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials and enable new approaches to the challenge of achieving efficient but low cost approaches to solar power conversion. Starting from the basic principles of low-dimensional semiconductors, this book develops both the theoretical aspiration and the practical reality of nanostructured photovoltaic devices. Starting from bulk semiconductors, the relative merits of quantum well, nanowire and quantum dot materials as components in phototovoltaic devices are discussed, together with the role plasmonics and organic semiconductors can play in photovoltaic devices.