Fabrication and numerical analysis of AlGaAs/GaAs tandem solar cells with tunnel interconnections

Author

Amano, Chikara ; Sugiura, Hideo ; Yamaguchi, Masafumi ; Hane, Kunio

Author_Institution

NTT Optoelectron. Lab., Kanagawa, Japan

Volume

36

Issue

6

fYear

1989

fDate

6/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1026

Lastpage

1035

Abstract

High-efficiency (20.2% at 1 sun, AM 1.5) Al_0.4Ga_0.6As/GaAs tandem solar cells are successfully fabricated by molecular-beam epitaxy. The interconnection between the AlGaAs top cell and the GaAs bottom cell consists of a GaAs tunnel junction sandwiched between AlGaAs layers and provides a high-quality tunnel junction. Numerical analysis suggests that an efficiency of 30% can be realized by increasing the carrier lifetimes of AlGaAs layers to 10^-8 s. An efficiency of 35% is expected to be obtainable by replacing the GaAs tunnel junction with an Al_0.33Ga_0.67As tunnel junction

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium arsenide; molecular beam epitaxial growth; numerical analysis; semiconductor technology; solar cells; tunnelling; 10 ns; 20.2 to 35 percent; AlGaAs-GaAs; GaAs tunnel junction; MBE; carrier lifetimes; efficiency; fabrication; model; molecular-beam epitaxy; numerical analysis; semiconductors; tandem solar cells; tunnel interconnections; tunnel junction interconnection; Current density; Diodes; Fabrication; Gallium arsenide; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Numerical analysis; Photoconductivity; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.24344

Filename

24344