Effect of emitter parameter variation on the performance of heteroepitaxial indium phosphide solar cells

Author

Jain, R.K. ; Flood, D.J.

Author_Institution

NASA Lewis Res. Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

fYear

1990

fDate

21-25 May 1990

Firstpage

1350

Abstract

Metalorganic chemical-vapor-deposited heteroepitaxial indium phosphide solar cell performance was simulated using a PC-1D computer model. The effect of emitter parameter variation on the performance of an n⁺/p/p⁺ heteroepitaxial InP/GaAs solar cell was studied. It was observed that thin and lightly doped emitters offer higher cell efficiencies. The influence of emitter thickness and minority carrier diffusion length on the cell efficiency versus dislocation density was studied. It is shown that heteroepitaxial cells with efficiencies similar to existing efficiencies (>16% AM0) of homojunction indium phosphide cells are possible if a dislocation density lower than 10⁶ cm^-2 can be achieved. A realistic optimized design study yields indium phosphide solar cells with over 22% AM0 efficiency at 25°C

Keywords

CVD coatings; III-V semiconductors; dislocation density; electrical engineering computing; indium compounds; semiconductor device models; solar cells; 16 percent; 22 percent; 25 degC; AM0 efficiencies; InP solar cells; InP-GaAs; PC-1D computer model; dislocation density; emitter parameter variation; heteroepitaxial indium phosphide solar cells; metalorganic CVD solar cells; n⁺/p/p⁺ heteroepitaxial InP/GaAs solar cell; Buffer layers; Computational modeling; Computer simulation; Costs; Design optimization; Gallium arsenide; Indium phosphide; MOCVD; NASA; Photovoltaic cells;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1990., Conference Record of the Twenty First IEEE

Conference_Location

Kissimmee, FL

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1990.111831

Filename

111831