Effect of different tunnel diodes on the efficiency of multi-junction III-V solar cells

Author

Hung-Wei Yu ; Hong-Quan Nguyen ; Chen-Chen Chung ; Ching-Hsiang Hsu ; Chih-Jen Hsiao ; Chang, Edward Yi

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Nat. Chiao Tung Univ., Hsinchu, Taiwan

fYear

2014

fDate

27-29 Aug. 2014

Firstpage

298

Lastpage

300

Abstract

InGaP/GaAs dual-junction solar cells with different tunnel diodes (TDs) grown on misoriented GaAs substrates are investigated. It is found that the solar cells with P⁺⁺-AlGaAs/N⁺⁺-GaAs TDs grown on 10° off GaAs substrates show a higher external quantum efficiency (EQE) but also generate a higher peak current density (J_peak) than the solar cells with P⁺⁺-GaAs/N⁺⁺-InGaP TDs grown on 10°off GaAs substrates. Furthermore, smooth surface (rms roughness: 1.54 Å) and sharp interface for the GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As TDs were obtained when the (100) tilted 10° off toward [111] GaAs substrate was used. The conversion efficiency of InGaP/GaAs dual-junction solar cell with N⁺⁺-GaAs/P⁺⁺-AlGaAs TD grown on the (100) tilted 10° off toward (111) GaAs substrate is close to 20%.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; solar cells; substrates; tunnel diodes; Al_0.3Ga_0.7As; GaAs; InGaP; external quantum efficiency; gallium arsenide dual-junction solar cells; indium gallium phosphide dual-junction solar cells; misoriented gallium arsenide substrates; multijunction III-V solar cell efficiency; peak current density; tunnel diodes; Current density; Epitaxial layers; Gallium arsenide; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; InGaP/GaAs dual junction solar cells; N⁺⁺-GaAs/P⁺⁺-AlGaAs tunnel diodes; misoriented GaAs substrates;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Semiconductor Electronics (ICSE), 2014 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Kuala Lumpur

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SMELEC.2014.6920856

Filename

6920856