Thin film microcells for concentrated applications

Thin film microcells for concentrated applications

Miniaturizing concentrator cells is beneficial for heat and spreading resistance losses management. With III-V materials, solar cells cannot be designed much less than 0.1 mm 2 due to edge recombination. We study thin film Cu(In, Ga)Se2 microcells, where the diffusion length is around 1 μm. Thus sma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) pp. 2118 - 2122
Main Authors: Paire, Myriam, Lombez, Laurent, Delamarre, Amaury, Collin, Stephane, Pelouard, Jean-Luc, Guillemoles, Jean-Francois, Lincot, Daniel
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01-06-2013
Subjects:
Current-voltage characteristics
Glass
Heating
Lighting
Microcell networks
Photovoltaic cells
Sun
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Summary:Miniaturizing concentrator cells is beneficial for heat and spreading resistance losses management. With III-V materials, solar cells cannot be designed much less than 0.1 mm 2 due to edge recombination. We study thin film Cu(In, Ga)Se2 microcells, where the diffusion length is around 1 μm. Thus small devices (<;10 -5 cm 2 ) perform well, and the benefits of miniaturization can be exploited throughoufully. A 5% absolute efficiency increase on Cu(In, Ga)Se2 microcells at 475 suns is observed. Voc increases up to several thousand suns, temperature increment stays under 20°C at 1000 suns. Features of the high illumination regime are highlighted and modeled.
ISSN:0160-8371
DOI:10.1109/PVSC.2013.6744892