The Shockley-Queisser limit

Abstract Chapter 7 discussed the Shockley-Queisser detailed balance leading to the well known limit to the efficiency of single-junction solar cells. Starting from a historical introduction and a review of the Shockley-Queisser paper, the chapter considers the effect of concentrating sunlight – or, more generally, the sizes of the incident and emitted beams. The restriction of an abrupt absorption edge in the original detailed balance model is then abandoned to consider the Shockley-Queisser limit in the context of radiative balance discussed in Chapter 6. In the concluding part, Chapter 7 takes a broader view of the detailed balance by adding nonradiative recombination.