Critical transport behavior in quantum dot solids

Due to recent advances, silicon solar cells are rapidly approaching the Shockley-Queisser limit of 33% efficiency. Quantum Dot (QD) solar cells have the potential to surpass this limit and enable a new generation of photovoltaic technologies beyond the capabilities of any existing solar energy modalities. The creation of the first epitaxially-fused quantum dot solids showing broad phase coherence and metallicity necessary for solar implementation has not yet been achieved, and the metal-insulator transition in these materials needs to be explored. We have created a new model of electron transport through QD solids informed by 3D-tomography. We used the transfer matrix method, finite-size scaling to create a dynamic metallic-insulator transition phase diagram. For a large portion of the parameter space, our model shows a critical exponent distinct from previous studies.