Numerical Analysis of Radiative Recombination and Reabsorption in GaAs/Si Tandem

Ren Z, Mailoa JP, Liu Z, Liu H, Siah SC, Buonassisi T, Peters IM (2015)


Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2015

Journal

Book Volume: 5

Pages Range: 1079-1086

Article Number: 7109816

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2427580

Abstract

We demonstrate a numerical analysis of the device impact of photon reabsorption on single-junction GaAs and tandem GaAs/Si solar cells. A self-consistent optical-electrical model that considers nonideal losses within the devices is developed. For single-junction devices, we find that the impact of photon recycling on the voltage increases monotonically with the injection level. For record-level GaAs solar cells, the voltage boost is 33 mV under open-circuit conditions and 13 mV at the maximum power point. For tandem GaAs/Si solar cells, photon reabsorption moderates the sensitivity of tandem efficiency to both obvious parameters like absorber thickness and implicit parameters like shunt resistance (R{{\rm sh}}) and bulk lifetime. Considering luminescent coupling results in a GaAs top cell that is 9.5% thicker than without luminescent coupling. The tandem device is 50% more sensitive to R-{{\rm sh}} changes in the GaAs cell than R-{{\rm sh}} changes in the Si cell. The impact of the GaAs top-cell bulk lifetime on tandem efficiency is reduced by 61% if photon reabsorption is not considered. This integrated optoelectronic device model allows one quantification of the implicit effects of photon recycling and luminescent coupling on device parameters for GaAs/Si tandem, providing a valuable tool for high-performance device optimization.

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How to cite

APA:

Ren, Z., Mailoa, J.P., Liu, Z., Liu, H., Siah, S.C., Buonassisi, T., & Peters, I.M. (2015). Numerical Analysis of Radiative Recombination and Reabsorption in GaAs/Si Tandem. IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, 5(4), 1079-1086. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2427580

MLA:

Ren, Zekun, et al. "Numerical Analysis of Radiative Recombination and Reabsorption in GaAs/Si Tandem." IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics 5.4 (2015): 1079-1086.

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