ADVANCED SINGLE-CRYSTAL III-V SOLAR-CELL TECHNOLOGY AND ITS APPLICATIONS

Solar cells made from III-V single crystal semiconductors currently hold the world record for direct energy conversion efficiency from sunlight into electricity. This is true for both space and terrestrial applications, and for both one sun (flat plate collector) systems and concentration based systems which use lenses or miners to focus the light into a smaller collector area. This paper presents an outline of the current (1993) applications of III-Vs in photovoltaic technology, and reviews the principal limiting factors which are preventing the more wide scale exploitation of the exceptionally high performance III-V solar cells demonstrated at a research level. Finally, a discussion of the ultimate prospects for applications in space and in terrestrial systems is presented.