Lattice-matched multijunction solar cells employing a 1 eV GaInNAsSb bottom cell

Derkacs, Daniel; Jones-Albertus, Rebecca; Suarez, Ferran; Fidaner, Onur

doi:10.1117/1.jpe.2.021805

Cited by 48 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, a III-V triple junction coherently grown (lattice matched) onto GaAs substrate has been performed by Solar Junction. This solar cell has shown a 44% efficiency under 947 suns (AM1.5D spectra) (Derkacs et al 2012) and contains a highly rewarded 1 eV GaInAsNSb diluted-nitride junction. However, maintaining the GaAs, or Ge, substrates to build these high-efficiency III-V solar cells, undoubtedly incurs a substantial cost associated with such substrates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monolithic Integration of Diluted-Nitride III–V-N Compounds on Silicon Substrates: Toward the III–V/Si Concentrated Photovoltaics

Durand

Almosni

Wang

et al. 2014

Energy Harvesting and Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

GaAsPN semiconductors are promising material for the development of high-efficiency tandem solar cells on silicon substrates. GaAsPN diluted-nitride alloy is studied as the top-junction material due to its perfect lattice matching with the Si substrate and its ideal bandgap energy allowing a perfect current matching with the Si bottom cell. The GaP/Si interface is also studied in order to obtain defect-free GaP/Si pseudo-substrates suitable for the subsequent GaAsPN top junctions growth. Result shows that a double-step growth procedure suppresses most of the microtwins and a bi-stepped Si buffer can be grown, suitable to reduce the anti-phase domains density. We also review our recent progress in materials development of the GaAsPN alloy and our recent studies of all the different building blocks toward the development of a PIN solar cell. GaAsPN alloy with energy bandgap around 1.8 eV, lattice matched with the Si substrate, has been achieved. This alloy displays efficient photoluminescence at room temperature and good light absorption. An earlystage GaAsPN PIN solar cell prototype has been grown on a GaP(001) substrate. The external quantum efficiency and the I-V curve show that carriers have been extracted from the GaAsPN alloy absorber, with an open-circuit voltage above 1 eV, however a low short-circuit current density obtained suggests that GaAsPN structural properties need further optimization. Considering all the pathways for improvement, the 2.25% efficiency and IQE around 35% obtained under AM1.5G is however promising, therefore validating our approach for obtaining a lattice-matched dual-junction solar cell on silicon substrate.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monolithic Integration of Diluted-Nitride III–V-N Compounds on Silicon Substrates: Toward the III–V/Si Concentrated Photovoltaics

Durand

Almosni

Wang

et al. 2014

Energy Harvesting and Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Attaining a 1 eV junction in the GaAs/Ge technology requires challenging lattice mismatched growth, mechanical stacking or the introduction of novel quaternary materials. [2,3] Our development of a multi-junction solar cell on InP aims to achieve high efficiency by combining optimal bandgap materials, while maintaining lattice match conditions. Up to date, our approach has involved a significant modeling effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling, design and experimental results for high efficiency multi-junction solar cells lattice matched to InP

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The high conversion efficiencies demonstrated by multi-junction solar cells over the past three decades have made them indispensable for use in space and are very attractive for terrestrial concentrator applications. The multi-junction technology consistently displays efficiency values in excess of 30%, with record highs of 37.8% under 1 sun conditions and over 44% under concentration. However, as material quality in current III-V multi-junction technology reaches practical limits, more sophisticated structures will be required to further improve on these efficiency values. In a collaborative effort amongst several institutions we have developed a novel multi-junction solar cell design that has the potential to reach the 50% conversion efficiency value. Our design consists of a three junction cell grown on InP substrates which achieves the optimal bandgaps for solar energy conversion using lattice matched materials. In this work, we present the progress in the different subcells comprising this multi-junction structure. For the top cell, InAlAsSb quaternary material is studied. For the middle, InGaAlAs and InGaAsP materials and devices are considered and for the bottom, a multi-quantum well structure lattice matched to InP for fine bandgap tunability for placement in an InGaAs cell is demonstrated.

show abstract

“…But despite this improvement, the design was far away from the optimal combination of bandgaps. Other approaches such as metamorphic growth (upright or inverted) 5 , wafer bonding 6 or the use of mismatched alloys (dilute nitrides, in particular) 7 , have been developed in recent years to tackle the lack of lower bandgap materials compatible with the growth on GaAs or Ge (figure 1, center). They have achieved very high efficiencies at laboratory level but at the cost of a more complex or lengthy fabrication process, raising questions about its viability at the industrial level.…”

Section: Historic Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum wells for high-efficiency photovoltaics

Alonso-Álvarez

Ekins-Daukes

2016

SPIE Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last couple of decades, there has been an intense research on strain balanced semiconductor quantum wells (QW) to increase the efficiency of multi-junction solar (MJ) solar cells grown monolithically on germanium. So far, the most successful application of QWs have required just to tailor a few tens of nanometers the absorption edge of a given subcell in order to reach the optimum spectral position. However, the demand for higher efficiency devices requiring 3, 4 or more junctions, represents a major difference in the challenges QWs must face: tailoring the absorption edge of a host material is not enough, but a complete new device, absorbing light in a different spectral region, must be designed. Among the most important issues to solve is the need for an optically thick structure to absorb enough light while keeping excellent carrier extraction using highly strained materials. Improvement of the growth techniques, smarter device designs -involving superlattices and shifted QWs, for example -or the use of quantum wires rather than QWs, have proven to be very effective steps towards high efficient MJ solar cells based on nanostructures in the last couple of years. But more is to be done to reach the target performances. This work discusses all these challenges, the limitations they represent and the different approaches that are being used to overcome them.

show abstract

Lattice-matched multijunction solar cells employing a 1 eV GaInNAsSb bottom cell

Cited by 48 publications

References 6 publications

Monolithic Integration of Diluted-Nitride III–V-N Compounds on Silicon Substrates: Toward the III–V/Si Concentrated Photovoltaics

Monolithic Integration of Diluted-Nitride III–V-N Compounds on Silicon Substrates: Toward the III–V/Si Concentrated Photovoltaics

Modeling, design and experimental results for high efficiency multi-junction solar cells lattice matched to InP

Quantum wells for high-efficiency photovoltaics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About