Measurements and Modeling of III-V Solar Cells at High Temperatures up to 400 °C

Perl, Emmett E.; Simon, John; Geisz, John F.; Lee, Minjoo Larry; Friedman, Daniel J.; Steiner, Myles A.

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2016.2582398

Title: Measurements and Modeling of III-V Solar Cells at High Temperatures up to 400 °C

Journal Article · Wed Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/jphotov.2016.2582398· OSTI ID:1329367

^[1]; Simon, John ^[2]; Geisz, John F. ^[2]; Lee, Minjoo Larry ^[3]; Friedman, Daniel J. ^[2]; Steiner, Myles A. ^[2]

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Yale University, New Haven, CT (United States)

Here in this paper, we study the performance of 2.0 eV Al_0.12Ga_0.39In_0.49P and 1.4 eV GaAs solar cells over a temperature range of 25-400 degrees °C. The temperature-dependent J₀₁ and J₀₂dark currents are extracted by fitting current-voltage measurements to a two-diode model. We find that the intrinsic carrier concentration ni dominates the temperature dependence of the dark currents, open-circuit voltage, and cell efficiency. To study the impact of temperature on the photocurrent and bandgap of the solar cells, we measure the quantum efficiency and illuminated current-voltage characteristics of the devices up to 400 °C. As the temperature is increased, we observe no degradation to the internal quantum efficiency and a decrease in the bandgap. These two factors drive an increase in the short-circuit current density at high temperatures. Finally, we measure the devices at concentrations ranging from ~30 to 1500 suns and observe n = 1 recombination characteristics across the entire temperature range. These findings should be a valuable guide to the design of any system that requires high-temperature solar cell operation.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308; AR0000508

OSTI ID:: 1329367

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5J00-66661

Journal Information:: IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, Vol. 6, Issue 5; ISSN 2156-3381

Publisher:: IEEECopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 37 works

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References (16)

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