Gallium antimonide infrared solar cells with improved efficiency and manufacturability

✍ Scribed by P.E. Gruenbaum; V.T. Dinh; V.S. Sundaram

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 477 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0927-0248
• DOI: 10.1016/0927-0248(94)90256-9

✦ Synopsis

Mechanically-stacked gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium antimonide (GaSh) concentrator solar cells have achieved the highest photovoltaic receiver efficiency to date. This paper describes a new process for GaSh infrared cells that has produced cells with higher efficiency, manufacturability and yield. Cells with efficiency of 6.6% under a GaAs filter have been demonstrated at 50X AM0. These cells were exposed to 1 MeV protons, and were shown to have higher end-of-life efficiencies than the previous cells. V-grooving the front surface resulted in slightly higher radiation resistance.