Metamorphic and Lattice-Matched Solar Cells Under Concentration

Metamorphic III-V semiconductor materials offer access to bandgaps that span key portions of the solar spectrum, enabling new bandgap combinations in multijunction solar cells, and increasing both theoretical and practical efficiency limits for terrestrial concentrator cells. Experimental results are given for the quantum efficiency of metamorphic GaInAs solar cells with bandgap from 1.1 to 1.4 eV, and for metamorphic GaInP with both ordered and disordered group-III sublattices. Variable intensity J
_sc
vs. V
_oc
measurements are used to compare recombination components due to n=1 and n=2 mechanisms in metamorphic and lattice-matched GaInAs, GaInP, and 3-junction solar cells. A record efficiency metamorphic GaInP/GaInAs/Ge 3-junction solar cell has been produced with 38.8% efficiency independently confirmed (241 suns, AM1.5D, low-AOD, 25degC), essentially equaling the performance of a lattice-matched 3-junction cell with 39.0% efficiency, the highest efficiency yet demonstrated and verified for a solar photovoltaic conversion device. With the combination of high-quality metamorphic materials that are increasingly less controlled by recombination at dislocations, and the higher efficiency limits afforded by freedom of lattice constant selection, practical terrestrial concentrator cell efficiencies well over 40% are expected in the near future