Large-area, epitaxial lift-off, inverted metamorphic solar cells

Author

Tatavarti, R. ; Wibowo, A. ; Elarde, V. ; Tuminello, F. ; Pastor, R. ; Giannopoulos, T. ; Osowski, M. ; Chan, R. ; Youtsey, C. ; Hillier, G. ; Pan, N.

Author_Institution

MicroLink Devices Inc., Niles, IL, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

19-24 June 2011

Abstract

Large area (20 cm²) epitaxial lifted-off (ELO) triple junction (TJ) solar cells based on inverted metamorphic (IMM) InGaP/GaAs/InGaAs were fabricated. These TJ IMM ELO solar cells exhibited efficiency >;29% at one sun AMO illumination, which is the highest reported efficiency for IMM ELO thin cells to date. The cells had fill factor >;85%, open circuit voltage (V_oc) = 2.93 V, and short circuit current density (J_sc) = 16.3 mA/cm². Studies performed on IMM ELO solar cells after >;700 thermal cycles between -175 °C and 80 °C revealed no degradation in cell performance. Batches of up to 48 substrates were subjected to reclaim after the ELO process; no degradation in performance was noted between cells grown on prime and reclaimed substrates.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; current density; gallium arsenide; indium compounds; solar cells; InGaP-GaAs-InGaAs; TJ IMM ELO solar cell; epitaxial lift-off triple-junction solar cell; fill factor; inverted metamorphic solar cell; large-area solar cell; open-circuit voltage; short-circuit current density; sun AMO illumination; voltage 2.93 V; Current measurement; Degradation; Extraterrestrial measurements; Gallium arsenide; Lighting; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2011 37th IEEE

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9966-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2011.6186333

Filename

6186333