Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S81933/01
Title:	Third Generation Concentrator Solar Cells enhanced by Quantum Wells
Principal Investigator:	Barnham, Professor K
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Physics
Organisation:	Imperial College London
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 January 2004	Ends:	30 June 2007	Value (£):	389,245
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Materials Characterisation Materials Processing Materials Synthesis & Growth Solar Technology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Electronics Energy
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Our research on novel strain-balanced quantum well solar cells (SB-QWSCs) under grant GR/N35434 has demonstrated a number of significant advantages as areplacement for the GaAs cell in a Third Generation GainP/GaAs/Ge multijunction cell in terrestrial concentrator systems. Two unexpected advances were the observation of ideality n = 1 dark-current behaviour in SB-QWSCs at concentrator current levels and the observation that as the QWs get deeper the dark-currents become more radiative. We propose to optimise our cell for terrestrial concentrator applications and demonstrate its advantages in GaInP/GaAs tandem cells using the new Thomas Swan reactor at the EPSRC III-V Facility at Sheffield. We will demonstrate our cell on Ge substratates which reduce costs and study tunnel junctions and active Ge substrates. We will extend our fundamental studies of quasi-Fermi level separation to SB-QWSCs to take advantage of the radiatively dominated dark-current and investigate further the important and unexpected observation made on GR/N35434 that radiative recombination at open-circuit voltage (Voc), when exciting with a laser in the QW, is identical to the electroluminescence in the dark at the same voltage. Our predictions, based on 50 shallow well SB-QWSCs, suggest we should be able to achieve a record cell efficiency in the 200x - 400x concentrator region.W e will study novel growth approaches that will further increase the spectral range of the SB-QWSC and hence the tandem efficiency.
Key Findings
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Potential use in non-academic contexts
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Impacts
Description This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk Summary Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Project URL:
Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.imperial.ac.uk