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Printing-based assembly of quadruple-junction four-terminal microscale solar cells and their use in high-efficiency modules

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 593–598 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Expenses associated with shipping, installation, land, regulatory compliance and on-going maintenance and operations of utility-scale photovoltaics can be significantly reduced by increasing the power conversion efficiency of solar modules1 through improved materials, device designs and strategies for light management2,3,4. Single-junction cells have performance constraints defined by their Shockley–Queisser limits5. Multi-junction cells6,7,8,9,10,11,12 can achieve higher efficiencies, but epitaxial and current matching requirements between the single junctions in the devices hinder progress. Mechanical stacking of independent multi-junction cells13,14,15,16,17,18,19 circumvents these disadvantages. Here we present a fabrication approach for the realization of mechanically assembled multi-junction cells using materials and techniques compatible with large-scale manufacturing. The strategy involves printing-based stacking of microscale solar cells, sol–gel processes for interlayers with advanced optical, electrical and thermal properties, together with unusual packaging techniques, electrical matching networks, and compact ultrahigh-concentration optics. We demonstrate quadruple-junction, four-terminal solar cells with measured efficiencies of 43.9% at concentrations exceeding 1,000 suns, and modules with efficiencies of 36.5%.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustrations and images of quadruple-junction four-terminal microscale solar cells assembled using a printing-based method and an As2Se3 interface material.
Figure 2: Image of a packaged quadruple-junction microscale solar cell with separate terminal connections to the top 3J cell and the bottom Ge cell, and key performance parameters.
Figure 3: Schematic illustrations of microscale quadruple-junction structures assembled by printing with different interfaces, and comparisons of their electrical, optical and thermal properties.
Figure 4: Images and performance of completed quadruple-junction microscale solar cells with concentration optics.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the DOE ‘Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion’ Energy Frontier Research Center under grant DE-SC0001293. L.S. acknowledges support from China Scholarship Council. We thank J. Hu and Y. Zou for discussion on chalcogenide glasses, J. Soares for help on laser facilities, J. He for ray tracing modelling, and E. Chow for thermal imaging.

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Author notes

  1. Xing Sheng and Christopher A. Bower: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

    Xing Sheng, Shuodao Wang, Ralph G. Nuzzo & John A. Rogers

  2. Semprius, Durham, North Carolina 27713, USA

    Christopher A. Bower, Salvatore Bonafede, John W. Wilson, Brent Fisher, Matthew Meitl & Scott Burroughs

  3. Solar Junction, San Jose, California 95131, USA

    Homan Yuen

  4. Department of Physics, College of Sciences, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221116, China

    Ling Shen

  5. Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

    Anthony R. Banks

  6. Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

    Christopher J. Corcoran, Ralph G. Nuzzo & John A. Rogers

Authors
  1. Xing Sheng
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Contributions

X.S., C.A.B., S.B., M.M., H.Y., L.S., A.R.B., C.J.C. and J.A.R. designed and fabricated the devices. X.S., C.A.B., J.W.W., B.F., L.S., A.R.B. and C.J.C. measured the data. X.S., B.F., M.M. and S.W. performed simulations. R.G.N., S.B. and J.A.R. provided guidance. X.S., C.A.B., M.M. and J.A.R. wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Scott Burroughs or John A. Rogers.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that C.A.B., S.B., J.W.W., B.F., M.M., H.Y., S.B. and J.A.R. (affiliated with Semprius and Solar Junction) are involved in commercializing various technologies related to those described here. J.A.R. is a co-founder of Semprius.

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Sheng, X., Bower, C., Bonafede, S. et al. Printing-based assembly of quadruple-junction four-terminal microscale solar cells and their use in high-efficiency modules. Nature Mater 13, 593–598 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3946

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