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Solar Thin Film Photovoltaics
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Patent US9985161
Issued 2018-05-29
Multijunction Metamorphic Solar Cell For Space Applications
A multijunction solar cell assembly and its method of manufacture including first and second discrete semiconductor body subassemblies, each semiconductor body subassembly including first, second and third lattice matched subcells; a graded interlayer adjacent to the third solar subcell and functioning as a lateral conduction layer; and a fourth solar subcell adjacent to said graded interlayer being lattice mismatched with respect to the third solar subcell; wherein the average band gap of all four cells is greater than 1.44 eV.
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- 1. A multijunction solar cell assembly including a terminal of first polarity and a terminal of second polarity comprising:
a first semiconductor body including a tandem vertical stack of at least a first upper solar subcell, a second solar subcell, and a bottom solar subcell, the first upper subcell having a top contact connected to the terminal of first polarity, and the bottom solar subcell having a top contact and a bottom contact; a second semiconductor body disposed adjacent to the first semiconductor body and including a tandem vertical stack of at least a first upper, a second and a bottom solar subcells, the first upper subcell of the second semiconductor body having a top contact connected to the terminal of first polarity, and the bottom subcell of the second semiconductor body having a top contact and a bottom contact with its bottom contact connected to the terminal of second polarity; wherein the first and second semiconductor body each comprises a first highly doped lateral conduction layer electrically connected to each other and disposed adjacent to and beneath the second solar subcell of each respective body; and wherein the first and second semiconductor body each comprises a blocking p-n diode or insulating layer disposed adjacent to and beneath the first highly doped lateral conduction layer; and a second highly doped lateral conduction layer disposed adjacent to and beneath the respective blocking p-n diode or insulating layer, an electrical connection between the first lateral conduction layer of the first and the second semiconductor body and the second lateral conduction layer of the first semiconductor body; the bottom solar subcell of each respective body being disposed adjacent to and beneath the second highly doped lateral conduction layer, with the bottom subcell of the first semiconductor body being connected in a series electrical circuit with the bottom subcell of the second semiconductor body so that at least a four junction solar cell is formed by the assembly.
