Title :
An empirical investigation of the InP shallow-homojunction solar cell
Author :
Wanlass, M.W. ; Gessert, T.A. ; Emery, K.A. ; Coutts, T.J.
Author_Institution :
Solar Energy Res. Inst., Golden, CO, USA
Abstract :
An experimental study of the performance of epitaxially grown InP shallow-homojunction solar cells as a function of the thickness and carrier concentration in the base and emitter layers is presented. Idenfification of improvements to cell design leading to higher performance is emphasized. As a result, using a near-optimum set of design parameters, cells with conversion efficiencies of 20.3% (global) and 17.6% (AM0) have been achieved. For such cells, it is shown that the internal response of the base layer is essentially perfect, whereas the emitter-layer properties can be improved substantially and warrant further investigation. Discrepancies between the results of the present study and those of earlier modeling efforts are discussed.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; carrier density; indium compounds; solar cells; 17.6 percent; 20.3 percent; InP shallow homojunction solar cells; base layer; carrier concentration; conversion efficiencies; emitter layers; semiconductor; Design optimization; Epitaxial layers; Gold; Impurities; Indium phosphide; Neodymium; Photovoltaic cells; Predictive models; Solar energy; Substrates;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1988., Conference Record of the Twentieth IEEE
Conference_Location :
Las Vegas, NV, USA
DOI :
10.1109/PVSC.1988.105749
