Title :
Electricity from concentrated solar IR in solar lighting applications
Author :
Fraas, Lewis M. ; Avery, James E. ; Nakamura, Takashi
Author_Institution :
JX Crystals, Issaquah, WA, USA
Abstract :
The sun´s energy can be concentrated and it´s spectrum divided into visible light and infrared where the visible light can be used for applications such as plant growth or building interior lighting and the IR can be converted to electricity using low bandgap GaSb photovoltaic cells. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been developing the Solar Lighting System for space based plant growth. As a result, PSI has performed outdoor testing on GaSb cells provided by JX Crystals using concentrated IR solar energy. An efficiency of 15.4% has been measured with a cell output power density of 2.21 W/cm2. This efficiency is consistent with indoor flash test data and QE data. The efficiency can be improved to 17.3% using an improved AR coating.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; antireflection coatings; gallium compounds; photovoltaic cells; semiconductor device measurement; 15.4 percent; 17.3 percent; AR coating; GaSb; GaSb photovoltaic cells; Solar Lighting System; concentrated solar IR; efficiency; solar lighting; space based plant growth; Crystals; Density measurement; Energy conversion; Infrared spectra; Performance evaluation; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Solar energy; Sun; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2002. Conference Record of the Twenty-Ninth IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7471-1
DOI :
10.1109/PVSC.2002.1190758
