III-V Solar Cells

TL;DR

This paper reviews III-V solar cell materials, growth methods, and loss mechanisms, highlighting how nanostructured designs can approach ideal efficiency limits by operating in a radiatively dominated regime.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of loss mechanisms in III-V solar cells and compares traditional bulk designs with nanostructured approaches for high efficiency.

Findings

Bulk cells are dominated by non-radiative losses.

Nanostructured cells operate in a radiatively dominated mode.

Design flexibility enables high efficiency solar cells.

Abstract

III-V materials show a wide range of gaps making them ideal for the design of high efficiency solar cells. This chapter reviews relevant growth methods and material properties of these materials and discusses methods of combining heterogeneous materials, demonstrating the flexibility of design possible with these materials. The fundamental loss mechanisms of solar cells are analysed and quantified as a prelude to analysing high efficiency cell designs in single, tandem, and triple junction solar cells. The detailed analysis of loss mechanisms is used to obtain understanding of the limiting behaviour of these designs, and show that bulk cells remain dominated by non-radiative losses despite unity ideality factors. To conclude, this is contrasted with the operating regime of nanostructured solar cells which can be shown to operate in a radiatively dominated mode, and which therefore approach ideal solar cell efficiency limits.