Extremely low material consumption III/V solar cell

I. Kolpakov; E. A. Bochicchio; K. Korzun; P. A. L. M. Koolen; B. van Gorkom; W. J. H. Berghuis; R. Veldhoven; J. E. M. Haverkort

doi:10.1117/12.2608529

4 March 2022 Extremely low material consumption III/V solar cell

I. Kolpakov, E. A. Bochicchio, K. Korzun, P. A. L. M. Koolen, B. van Gorkom, W. J. H. Berghuis, R. Veldhoven, J. E. M. Haverkort

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11996, Physics, Simulation, and Photonic Engineering of Photovoltaic Devices XI; 1199607 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2608529
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2022, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

III/V semiconductor solar cells feature the highest photon conversion efficiencies (PCE), but they are still too expensive for terrestrial application. Conventional nanowire (NW) solar cells already partially resolve this issue since they can be grown on a silicon substrate and feature a low filling factor (the ratio of the 180 nm NW diameter to 500 nm NW pitch, squared). We take the next step by depositing PMMA micro-lenses with a diameter of 6 μm on top of a NW-array with the same 6 μm pitch, allowing to reduce the material consumption by more than 3 orders of magnitude. According to our FDTD simulations, the material consumption can even be further decreased by reducing the NW length with a factor of 2 down to 1 μm, since the lens is focusing the solar radiation near the top of the nanowires. We also expect a significantly increased V_oc due to an increased internal radiative efficiency (IRE) at a higher excitation power. Preliminary measurement show an increase in V_oc of at least 50 mV for randomly positioned microlenses on top of a dense NW array with 0.5 μm pitch.

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I. Kolpakov, E. A. Bochicchio, K. Korzun, P. A. L. M. Koolen, B. van Gorkom, W. J. H. Berghuis, R. Veldhoven, and J. E. M. Haverkort "Extremely low material consumption III/V solar cell", Proc. SPIE 11996, Physics, Simulation, and Photonic Engineering of Photovoltaic Devices XI, 1199607 (4 March 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2608529

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