Manufacturing and characterization of III-V on silicon multijunction solar cells

Abstract

Tandem GaInP/GaAs//Si(inactive) solar cells were manufactured by direct wafer bonding under vacuum. At this early stage, an inactive silicon substrate was used (i.e. n+ Si substrate instead of an active n-p Si junction). Bonded devices presented an Sshaped J-V curve with a kink close to Voc caused by a built-in potential barrier at the III-V//Si interface that reduces the fill factor and therefore the efficiency of the device by 7% compared to the stand-alone GaInP/GaAs tandem cells. Nevertheless, losses in Jsc and Voc caused by the bonding process, account for less than 10%. AlGaAs single junction cells, designed to be bonded on a silicon cell for low concentrator photovoltaics (LCPV), were also manufactured reaching an efficiency of 15.9% under one sun AM1.5G spectrum for a 2 cm² cell.