Investigation on AlInGaP solar cells for current matched multijunction cells

Characteristics on AlInGaP single junction solar cells are reported for the first time. AlInGaP cells with band-gap between 1.9 and 2.1 eV are desirable materials for the top cells of the multijunction solar cells. In the standard current matching process for the InGaP/InGaAs/Ge cells, InGaP top cells are thinned down to 0.6 /spl mu/m and 0.4 /spl mu/m for AM1.5G and AM0 conditions, respectively. By using the AlInGaP cell instead of the thinned InGaP cell, the current matching can be done well with increasing Voc. In this investigation, AlInGaP single junction cells with 1.96 eV band-gap were confirmed to demonstrate high Voc of about 1.52 V. Jsc of the AlInGaP cell was improved by increasing the cell thickness up to 2.5 /spl mu/m and thinning the emitter thickness.