Concentrator Solar Cell Production Capability and Laboratory Results at Emcore

Manufacturing capability is discussed including production capacity for both solar cells and packaged receiver sub assemblies, and the flash test/sort/inspection tooling and methods that have allowed this production capacity. Laboratory solar cell development results are presented, including quadruple junction inverted metamorphic solar cells with an efficiency of 33.6% under AM0 illumination at 28° C. Computational models are used to predict 43% conversion efficiency at 500 suns if this technology is successfully adapted to concentrating applications using the materials and processes now available. A temperature coefficient modeling study suggests that these four junction solar cells will degrade faster at elevated temperature than will comparable technology triple junction solar cells.