Ultra High Efficiency Solar Cells Using SiGeSn (HESCUS)

The project aims to address the need for ever higher efficency solar cells for terrestrial energy generation and also for space power applications. The Project intends to extend already leading edge technology and add a novel semiconductor material (SiGeSn) to better enable matching of the absorption wavelengths of the sub-cells of the device to the solar spectrum. By doing this it is anticipated that the conversion efficency of such a device can be increased from ~39% to close to 50% for a 4J multi-sun terrestrial cell, and from ~28% to ~35% for a 1-sun 4J AM0 space solar cell, greatly enhancing power generated per unit area for both application areas.