Gallium Arsenide Solar Panel Efficiency

In a recent article in the magazine electronic news gallium arsenide was tested on a germanium substrate.

Gallium arsenide solar panel efficiency.

Gaas solar cells can harness more sunlight than silicon based solar cells because they are made using a soft and silvery metal which can also be found in electronic circuits semiconductor materials and light emitting diodes. When it comes to the efficiency of the photovoltaic industry it is inseparable from theoretical efficiency and mass production efficiency. One of the great advantages of gallium arsenide is that the theoretical efficiency is high almost twice as high as that of crystalline silicon. Instead of being constructed from solid silicon wafers like mono or poly crystalline solar panels amorphous panels are made by depositing non crystalline silicon on a substrate like glass plastic or metal one layer of silicon on an amorphous solar panel can be as thin.

The same company has now set an efficiency record for an entire solar panel at 23 5 percent. The first known operational use of gaas solar cells in space was for the venera 3 mission launched in 1965. This makes them a good candidate for a stacked type of solar panels used for collecting light from all across the spectrum. Taken together they are the largest representation of solar in space occupying enough area to cover most of a football field.

Gallium arsenide solar cells can reach a top efficiency of 27 80. Solar cells and detectors gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material for high cost high efficiency solar cells and is used for single crystalline thin film solar cells and for multi junction solar cells. The record was independently confirmed by the national renewable energy laboratory part of the department of energy. Alta devices makes solar panels using gallium arsenide cells a more efficient material than the generally cheaper silicon based cells.

As a runner up multi junction cells made of gallium arsenide and similar materials resist degradation better than silicon and are the most efficient cells currently made with energy conversion efficiencies up to 34. This is a superior property of gallium arsenide. Like conventional solar panels amorphous solar panels are made from silicon but they are constructed in a different way.