Investigation on high-efficiency Ga0.51In0.49P/In0.01Ga0.99As/Ge triple-junction solar cells for space applications

Lei Zhang,Yuqiang Li,Jianxin Zhang,Pingjuan Niu,Minghui Song,Peizhuan Chen,Pingfan Ning

doi:10.1063/1.5006865

Lei Zhang, Yuqiang Li + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5006865

Copy DOI

Journal: AIP Advances	Publication Date: Dec 1, 2017
Citations: 24	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Tianjin Polytechnic University, Nankai University

Abstract

Ga0.51In0.49P/In0.01Ga0.99As/Ge triple-junction solar cells for space applications were grown on 4 inch Ge substrates by metal organic chemical vapor deposition methods. The triple-junction solar cells were obtained by optimizing the subcell structure, showing a high open-circuit voltage of 2.77 V and a high conversion efficiency of 31% with 30.15 cm2 area under the AM0 spectrum at 25 °C. In addition, the In0.01Ga0.99As middle subcell structure was focused by optimizing in order to improve the anti radiation ability of triple-junction solar cells, and the remaining factor of conversion efficiency for middle subcell structure was enhanced from 84% to 92%. Finally, the remaining factor of external quantum efficiency for triple-junction solar cells was increased from 80% to 85.5%.

Highlights

III-V compound semiconductor multi junction solar cells have been a topic of wide concern because of high conversion efficiency, excellent temperature coefficient and anti radiation ability instead of Si battery as the main energy source of space vehicles.[1,2,3]
The AIX2800-G4 LP-Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) system was used for the epitaxial growth of materials, The chemical vapor reaction source material were the arsenic (AsH3), phosphorus (PH3), three methyl aluminum (TMAl), trimethyl gallium (TMGa) and trimethyl indium (TMIn)
We choose the Ge with bias 9 degree as the growth substrate to suppress the formation of antiphase domains, at the same time, the P atom had a smaller diffusion coefficient than As atom in Ge substrate, GaInP is chosen as the initial layer to obtain a shallow junction depth.[25]

Summary

INTRODUCTION

III-V compound semiconductor multi junction solar cells have been a topic of wide concern because of high conversion efficiency, excellent temperature coefficient and anti radiation ability instead of Si battery as the main energy source of space vehicles.[1,2,3] In 2001, the United States Spectrolab took the lead in the use of triple-junction solar cells on the DIRECTV-4S satellite, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency researched up to 24.5%.4 From on, the multi junction solar cell conversion efficiency has been improved with the continuous development of Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) technology as well as the level of battery technology. 26.8%; after the continuous efforts of researchers, the third generation space triple-Junction solar cells achieved mass production, and the average conversion efficiency was 29.5%.19. The conversion efficiency of 33.2% for InGaP/InGaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells was achieved at the graphene quantum dot concentration of 1.2 mg/ml.[20] The efficiency of 40.7% was measured and independently confirmed for a metamorphic three-junction GaInP/GaInAs/Ge cell under the standard spectrum for terrestrial concentrator solar cells at 240 suns.[21] In space environment, it is inevitable for solar cells to be radiated by high energy particles, and particle radiation will seriously affect the solar cell performance and shorten the solar cell lifetime, so it is very necessary to study space multi-junction solar cell anti radiation performance.[22,23,24]. By further optimizing the middle subcell structure, the remaining factor of conversion efficiency for triple-junction solar cells was 85.5% under 1MeV electrons and 1×1015/cm[2] radiation conditions

EXPERIMENTAL SECTION

Triple-junction solar cells performance optimization

Anti radiation performance optimization

CONCLUSIONS