GaAs one-sun and concentrator solar cells based on LPE-ER grown structures

Author

Baldus, A. ; Bett, A.W. ; Blieske, U. ; Duong, T. ; Lutz, F. ; Schetter, C. ; Wettling, W. ; Sulima, O.V.

Author_Institution

Fraunhofer-Inst. fur Solare Energiesysteme, Freiburg, Germany

Volume

2

fYear

1994

fDate

5-9 Dec 1994

Firstpage

1697

Abstract

The liquid-phase epitaxy etchback regrowth (LPE-ER) technique was used to grow AlGaAs/GaAs heteroface and AlGaAs/Al_yGa_1-yAs(0.1<y<0.3) heteroface solar cell structures. The influence of substrate position (vertical or horizontal) during the LPE-ER process was investigated. A model for the growth of the LPE-ER structure in vertical substrate position is proposed. The LPE-ER grown structures were used to fabricate one-sun and concentrator solar cells. Efficiencies of up to 22.4% (AM1.5G) were achieved for solar cells of 4 cm² area. For concentrator application an efficiency of 24.8% (AM1.5, direct) was measured at 105 suns on a 13 mm² solar cell. A 243 cm² aperture area concentrator module consisting of 12 Fresnel lenses and 12 LPE-ER grown GaAs solar cells showed an efficiency of 20.3% under outdoor conditions

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; etching; gallium arsenide; liquid phase epitaxial growth; semiconductor device models; semiconductor device testing; semiconductor growth; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; solar energy concentrators; 20.3 percent; 22.4 percent; 24.8 percent; AlGaAs-AlGaAs; AlGaAs-GaAs; Fresnel lenses; GaAs; fabrication; growth model; heteroface solar cell; liquid-phase epitaxy etchback regrowth technique; outdoor conditions; substrate position; Boats; Cooling; Epitaxial growth; Etching; Gallium arsenide; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; Temperature; Throughput; Zinc;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 1994., Conference Record of the Twenty Fourth. IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1994, 1994 IEEE First World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1460-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.1994.520544

Filename

520544