Solaero Technologies Corp.

Andrew Colin Espenlaub

Daniel Derkacs

John Hart

Zachary Bittner

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having a first band gap and positioned for receiving an incoming light beam; and a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to and lattice matched with said upper first solar subcell, and having a second band gap smaller than said first band gap; wherein at least one of the solar subcells has a graded band gap throughout the thickness of at least a portion of its emitter layer and base layer.

Multijunction solar cells

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell, and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell from among the upper first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and being in a range of 20 to 300 MeV greater than a band gap in the active layer away from the photoelectric junction.

A multijunction solar cell comprising a first solar subcell having a first band gap; a second solar subcell disposed adjacent to said first solar subcell and including an emitter layer, and a base layer having a second band gap less than the first band gap, and being lattice mismatched with the upper first solar subcell, and an intermediate layer directly adjacent to and disposed between first and the second solar subcells and compositionally graded to lattice match the first solar subcell on one side and the second solar subcell on the other side, and arranged so that light can enter and pass through the first solar subcell and at least a portion of which can be reflected back into the first solar subcell by the intermediate layer, and is composed of a plurality of layers of materials with discontinuities in their respective indices of refraction.

Multijunction metamorphic solar cell

A multijunction solar cell including a substrate and a top (or light-facing) solar subcell having an emitter layer, a base layer, and a window layer adjacent to the emitter layer, the window layer composed of a material that is optically transparent, has a band gap of greater than 2.6 eV, and includes an appropriately arranged multilayer antireflection coating on the top surface thereof.

Multijunction solar cell

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having a first band gap and positioned for receiving an incoming light beam; a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to and lattice matched with said upper first solar subcell, and having a second band gap smaller than said first band gap; wherein at least one of the solar subcells has a graded band gap throughout the thickness of at least a portion of the active layer of the one solar subcell.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having a first band gap and positioned for receiving an incoming light beam; a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to and lattice matched with said upper first solar subcell, and having a second band gap smaller than said first band gap; wherein at least one of the solar subcells has a graded band gap throughout the thickness of at least a portion of the active layer.

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Andrew Colin Espenlaub