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US 6,278,054 B1Granted
Solar cell having an integral monolithically grown bypass diode
AssigneeTecstar Power Systems, Inc.
InventorsFrank Ho, Milton Y. Yeh, Chaw-Long Chu, Peter A. Iles
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is directed to systems and methods for protecting a solar cell. The solar cell includes first solar cell portion. The first solar cell portion includes at least one junction and at least one solar cell contact on a backside of the first solar cell portion. At least one bypass diode portion is epitaxially grown on the first solar cell portion. The bypass diode has at least one contact. An interconnect couples the solar cell contact to the diode contact.
Claims9
A protected multijunction solar cell circuit comprising:
- a multijunction solar cell structure including at least a first photovoltaic cell having a first photoactive junction therein and
- a second photovoltaic cell having a second photoactive junction therein overlaying at least a portion of said first photovoltaic cell;
- and
- an epitaxially grown diode overlaying at least a portion of said multijunction solar cell structure, said epitaxially grown diode having a photoactive junction therein;
- wherein said epitaxially grown diode is eletrically connected across said at least first and second photovoltaic cells to protect said at least first and said second photovoltaic cells against reverse biasing.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.