Analysis and performance comparison of medium concentration Si and GaAs/Ge cells

Author

Krut, D.D. ; Glenn, G.S.

Author_Institution

Spectrolab Inc., Sylmar, CA, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

10-14 May 1993

Firstpage

1209

Lastpage

1212

Abstract

Concentrator silicon and GaAs-Ge solar cells have been fabricated and tested by Spectrolab. In this paper, the present the results of their work as well as the economic analyses demonstrating applicability of each cell type. Si top/bottom contact solar cells can be commercially produced to perform with efficiencies exceeding 20% under concentration around 200X AM1.5. For GaAs/Ge solar cells, consisting of epitaxially grown GaAs layers on Ge substrates, possible production efficiencies can exceed 26%. An economic comparison of the two technologies is also reported

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; economics; electrical contacts; elemental semiconductors; epitaxial growth; gallium arsenide; germanium; semiconductor device manufacture; semiconductor device testing; semiconductor growth; silicon; solar cells; solar energy concentrators; GaAs-Ge; Ge; Si; applicability; bottom contact; concentrator solar cells; economic analysis; epitaxial growth; fabrication; medium concentration; performance comparison; semiconductor; substrates; testing; top contact; Conductivity; Gallium arsenide; Performance analysis; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic systems; Power generation economics; Production; Solar power generation; Sun; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1993., Conference Record of the Twenty Third IEEE

Conference_Location

Louisville, KY

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1220-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1993.346950

Filename

346950