100-period InGaAsP/InGaP superlattice solar cell with sub-bandgap quantum efficiency approaching 80%

Abstract

InGaAsP/InGaP quantum well (QW) structures are promising materials for next generation photovoltaic devices because of their tunable bandgap (1.50–1.80 eV) and being aluminum-free. However, the strain-balance limitations have previously limited light absorption in the QW region and constrained the external quantum efficiency (EQE) values beyond the In0.49Ga0.51P band-edge to less than 25%. In this work, we show that implementing a hundred period lattice matched InGaAsP/InGaP superlattice solar cell with more than 65% absorbing InGaAsP well resulted in more than 2× improvement in EQE values than previously reported strain balanced approaches. In addition, processing the devices with a rear optical reflector resulted in strong Fabry-Perot resonance oscillations and the EQE values were highly improved in the vicinity of these peaks, resulting in a short circuit current improvement of 10% relative to devices with a rear optical filter. These enhancements have resulted in an InGaAsP/InGaP superlattice solar cell with improved peak sub-bandgap EQE values exceeding 75% at 700 nm, an improvement in the short circuit current of 26% relative to standard InGaP devices, and an enhanced bandgap-voltage offset (Woc) of 0.4 V.