Performance of GaAs/Mirror/Cu-Substrate Thin-Film Solar Cells

Author

Tseng, Ming-Chun ; Horng, Ray-Hua ; Wu, Fan-Lei ; Wu, Chih-Hung ; Yang, Min-De

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electro-Opt. Eng., Nat. Cheng Kung Univ., Tainan, Taiwan

Volume

58

Issue

11

fYear

2011

Firstpage

3898

Lastpage

3904

Abstract

This paper presents the thermal effect on the performance of a GaAs thin-film solar cell with a 50-200- μm-thick copper (Cu) substrate. The GaAs thin-film solar cell is fabricated by transferring a GaAs solar cell on a Cu substrate with a AuGe/Au mirror. The thin-film solar cells with sufficiently thick Cu substrates exhibit significant performance stability (e.g., V_oc, J_sc, and FF) as the temperature increases. This stability can be attributed to the following two factors: 1) The highly reflective AuGe/Au mirror enhances the light absorption of the thin-film cell with a thin base layer, and 2) the good thermal dissipation of the Cu substrate reduces thermal degradation.

Keywords

copper; gallium arsenide; gold compounds; light absorption; mirrors; solar cells; thin films; AuGe-Au; Cu; GaAs; base layer; light absorption; mirrors; performance stability; size 50 mum to 200 mum; thermal degradation; thermal dissipation; thermal effect; thin film solar cells; Absorption; Copper; Gallium arsenide; Mirrors; Photoconductivity; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; Cu substrate; mirror; thermal dissipation; thin-film solar cell;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2011.2165721

Filename

6025276