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Title: 15.3%-Efficient GaAsP Solar Cells on GaP/Si Templates

Journal Article · · ACS Energy Letters
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [6];  [2]
  1. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering; National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  3. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering
  4. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  5. King Juan Carlos Univ., Madrid (Spain). Dept. of Electrical Technology
  6. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering
  7. School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, United States

As single-junction Si solar cells approach their practical efficiency limits, a new pathway is necessary to increase efficiency in order to realize more cost-effective photovoltaics. Integrating III-V cells onto Si in a multijunction architecture is a promising approach that can achieve high efficiency while leveraging the infrastructure already in place for Si and III-V technology. In this Letter, we demonstrate a record 15.3%-efficient 1.7 eV GaAsP top cell on GaP/Si, enabled by recent advances in material quality in conjunction with an improved device design and a high-performance antireflection coating. Furthermore, we present a separate Si bottom cell with a 1.7 eV GaAsP optical filter to absorb most of the visible light with an efficiency of 6.3%, showing the feasibility of monolithic III-V/Si tandems with >20% efficiency. Through spectral efficiency analysis, we also compare our results to previously published GaAsP and Si devices, projecting tandem GaAsP/Si efficiencies of up to 25.6% based on current state-of-the-art individual subcells. With the aid of modeling, we further illustrate a realistic path toward 30% GaAsP/Si tandems for high-efficiency, monolithically integrated photovoltaics.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308; DMR-1119826
OSTI ID:
1394745
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5J00-70182
Journal Information:
ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 2, Issue 8; ISSN 2380-8195
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 37 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

A review of recent progress in heterogeneous silicon tandem solar cells journal March 2018
GaAs/silicon PVMirror tandem photovoltaic mini‐module with 29.6% efficiency with respect to the outdoor global irradiance journal January 2019
How to control defect formation in monolithic III/V hetero-epitaxy on (100) Si? A critical review on current approaches journal August 2018
Direct Growth of a GaInP/GaAs/Si Triple‐Junction Solar Cell with 22.3% AM1.5g Efficiency journal September 2019
Nanoscale electrical analyses of axial-junction GaAsP nanowires for solar cell applications journal January 2020
Advanced Electron Microscopy for III/V on Silicon Integration journal April 2019
Energy band engineering of InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well solar cells via AlGaN electron- and hole-blocking layers journal July 2018
Design and growth of multi-functional InAsP metamorphic buffers for mid-infrared quantum well lasers on InP journal February 2019

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