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US 12,720,875 B2Granted
Multijunction solar cell
AssigneeSolAero Technologies Corp.
InventorsJohn Hart, Daniel Derkacs, Zachary Bittner, Andrew Espenlaub
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and having spaced apart regions with equal band gap spaced away from the photoelectric junction.
Claims20
A multijunction solar cell comprising:
- first solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to the first solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- and
- a third solar subcell disposed below the second solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- wherein the base layer and the emitter layer forming an active layer of a particular solar subcell from among the first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell, has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of the thickness of a first region in the emitter layer of the particular solar subcell adjacent to the photoelectric junction, and throughout at least a portion of the thickness of a second region in the base layer spaced apart from the first region and adjacent to the photoelectric junction of the particular solar subcell, with the band gap in the first region and the band gap in the second region being in the range of 20 to 300 meV greater than the band gap in a third region in the emitter layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction and equal to the band gap in a fourth region in the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction in the particular solar subcell.
2 more elements
A multijunction solar cell comprising:
- first solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to the first solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- and
- a third solar subcell disposed below the second solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- wherein at least one of the base layer and the emitter layer forming an active layer of a particular solar subcell from among the first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell, has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of the thickness of a first region adjacent to the photoelectric junction of the particular solar subcell, and having a value in the range of 20 to 300 meV greater than the band gap in a third region in the emitter layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction and less than the band gap in a fourth region in the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction in the particular solar subcell.
2 more elements
A method of fabricating a multijunction solar cell comprising:
- forming a first solar subcell having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- and
- forming a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to the first solar subcell, having an emitter layer and a base layer which form a photoelectric junction;
- and
- wherein at least one of the base layer and the emitter layer forming an active layer of a particular solar subcell from among the first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell, has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of the thickness of a first region and a second region adjacent to the photoelectric junction, with the band gap in the first region being in the range of 20 to 300 meV greater than the band gap in a third region in the emitting layer, and less than that in a fourth region in the base layer, both the third and fourth regions being spaced away from the photoelectric junction in the particular solar subcell.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.