High efficiency Inverted Metamorphic (IMM) solar cells

Author

Boisvert, J. ; Law, Daniel ; King, R. ; Rehder, Eike ; Chiu, Pi-Feng ; Bhusari, D. ; Fetzer, Christof ; Liu, Xindong ; Hong, Wei ; Mesropian, S. ; Woo, Rinara ; Edmondson, K. ; Cotal, H. ; Krut, D. ; Singer, S. ; Wierman, S. ; Karam, N.H.

Author_Institution

Spectrolab, Inc., Sylmar, CA, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

16-21 June 2013

Firstpage

2790

Lastpage

2792

Abstract

High efficiency Inverted Metamorphic (IMM) multi-junction solar cells have been under development at Spectrolab for use in space and near space applications This paper reviews the present state-of-the-art of this technology at Spectrolab with an emphasis on performance characterization data at in-flight operating conditions. Large area IMM3J and IMM4J solar cells with 1X AM0 efficiency greater than 32% at 28 °C have been fabricated and characterized. Degradation factors after exposure to 1 MeV electron irradiation for both IMM3J and IMM4J technologies is presented. A coupon utilizing large area, IMM solar cells has been assembled and subjected to thermal cycling. Pre-and post thermal cycling data have been collected. Preliminary temperature cycling data indicate that a small coupon populated with strings of these cells suffered no degradation.

Keywords

solar cells; space power generation; IMM3J; IMM4J; Spectrolab; electron irradiation; electron volt energy 1 MeV; inverted metamorphic multijunction solar cells; temperature 28 C; thermal cycling; Degradation; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic systems; Production; Standards; Substrates; IMM; multi-junction; photovoltaic; space;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2013 IEEE 39th

Conference_Location

Tampa, FL

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2013.6745051

Filename

6745051