Demonstration of additivity in strain-balanced quantum well solar cells and efficiency enhancement at high concentration

Author

Tibbits, Thomas N D ; Ballard, Ian ; Barnham, Keith W J ; Day, Rebecca ; Lim, Catherine ; Lynch, Marianne ; Mazzer, M. ; Roberts, John S. ; Airey, R.

Author_Institution

Phys. Dept., Imperial Coll. of Sci., Technol. & Med., London, UK

fYear

2005

fDate

3-7 Jan. 2005

Firstpage

587

Lastpage

590

Abstract

GaAs based Strain-Balanced Quantum Well Solar Cells (SB-QWSC) have been shown to enhance efficiency compared to a control, if the overall photocurrent increase is not offset by a reduction in open-circuit voltage. Here we demonstrate the performance of QWSC in light fluxes of up to 250 suns equivalent. The QWSC maintains additivity (the total current is the sum of dark current and the photocurrent) up to these light concentrations and shows a higher efficiency.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; dark conductivity; gallium arsenide; photoconductivity; quantum well devices; semiconductor quantum wells; solar cells; GaAs; GaAs based strain-balanced quantum well solar cells; SB-QWSC; additivity; dark current; efficiency enhancement; light concentrations; light flux; open-circuit voltage reduction; photocurrent; total current; Costs; Current measurement; Dark current; Educational institutions; Gallium arsenide; Photoconductivity; Photovoltaic cells; Quantum well devices; Solar power generation; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005. Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8707-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2005.1488199

Filename

1488199