The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 24, 1992
Filed:
Nov. 07, 1990
Donald B Warfield, Woodbine, MD (US);
Solarex Corporation, Rockville, MD (US);
Abstract
An improved vertical junction solar cell wherein the vertical junctions are formed by a plurality of grooves etched in the silicon wafer of the solar cell. The grooves define a plurality of walls having a top surface and side surfaces and a plurality of groove bottoms therebetween. In order to increase radiation resistance in such vertical junction solar cells, a focusing coverslide is provided which retracts or reflects incident light onto only the top surfaces of the walls and away from the grooved bottoms. It has been discovered that the majority of the radiation degradation in vertical junction solar cells occurs as a result of incident light impinging on the grooved bottoms, which are less resistant to radiation than are the top walls. Thus, the present invention provides a vertical junction solar cell with greatly increased radiation resistivity.