Design of InP-based metamorphic high-efficiency five-junction solar cells for concentrated photovoltaics

Abstract

We propose an InP-based upright five-junction (5J) solar cell structure for high conversion efficiency under concentration. In the structure, three bottom subcells are composed of lattice-matched (LM) InGaAsP materials, while two top subcells employ metamorphic InGaP materials. The two InGaP subcells are designed to have the same Ga composition of 30%. The first InGaP subcell is thinned so as to transmit half of the photon flux to the second InGaP subcell, thus forming an upright 5J InGaP(1.64 eV)/InGaP(1.64 eV)/InGaAsP(1.3 eV)/InGaAsP(1.02 eV)/InGaAs(0.74 eV) solar cell structure on the InP substrate. The subcell bandgap energies are chosen in such a way that a current matching condition can be achieved. Because no Al- or N-contained materials are used in the absorbers and only one metamorphic growth is required (with a lattice mismatch of 2.1%), the novel InP-based solar cell architecture is considered practically achievable with current growth technology. By comparing it with a InGaP/GaAs/Ge reference cell and adding additional nonideal factors in the modeling, an efficiency as high as 46.2% is estimated under concentration at ∼1500 suns.