(Al)GaInP/GaAs Tandem Solar Cells For Power Conversion at Elevated Temperature and High Concentration

Emmett E. Perl, John Simon, Daniel J. Friedman, Nikhil Jain, Paul Sharps, Claiborne McPheeters, Yukun Sun, Minjoo L. Lee, Myles A. Steiner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus Citations

Abstract

We demonstrate dual-junction (Al)GaInP/GaAs solar cells designed for operation at 400 °C and 1000x concentration. For the top junction, we compare (Al)GaInP solar cells with room-temperature bandgaps ranging from 1.9 to 2.0 eV. At 400 °C, we find that ∼1.9 eV GaInP solar cells have a higher open-circuit voltage and a lower sheet resistance than higher bandgap (Al)GaInP solar cells, giving them a clear advantage in a tandem configuration. Dual-junction GaInP/GaAs solar cells are fabricated, and we show temperature-dependent external quantum efficiency, illuminated current-voltage, and concentrator measurements from 25 °C to 400 °C. We measure a power conversion efficiency of 16.4% ± 1% at 400 °C and 345 suns for the best dual-junction cell, and discuss multiple pathways to improve the performance further. After undergoing a 200 h soak at 400 °C, the dual-junction device shows a relative loss in efficiency of only ∼1%.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)640-645
Number of pages6
JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume8
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5J00-70703

Keywords

  • high temperature
  • III-V and concentrator photovoltaics (PV)
  • PV cells
  • semiconductor materials
  • solar energy

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