A novel GaAsN/InGaAs strain-compensated multi-quantum wells solar cell
This paper reports on the device characteristics of strain-compensated multi-quantum wells (SC-MQWs) GaAsN/InGaAs single junction solar cell based on this very promising InGaAs material. Limitations of lattice mismatch could be overcome because the compressive strain in the InGaAs layers matches the tensile strain in the GaAsN layers. GaAsN/InGaAs SC-MQWs solar cells, lattice matched to GaAs, are proposed as a means of extending the long-wavelength absorption to make a competitive candidate in a cascade solar cell structure. We demonstrated that this GaAsN/InGaAs SC-MQWs solar cell could achieve a high short-circuit current density of about 20.87 mA cm?2, under AM1.5G illumination, which is higher than that of the InGaNAs cell. The GaAsN/InGaAs SC-MQWs structures show many of the characteristics required to make it a candidate for the next generation of multi-junction solar cells, which means this design can be used as the third junction in future generation ultrahigh-efficiency three- and four-junction devices.