Other renewables

Soitec produces 43.6% efficient 4-junction solar PV cell
Soitec (Euronext), a world leader in generating and manufacturing revolutionary semiconductor materials for the electronics and energy industries, announced today the industry’s first four-junction solar cell device, which works under concentrated sunlight, putting the company on the solar-energy industry’s technology roadmap at a world-class level of an outstanding 43.6 percent efficiency.
This technology development – made possible through strong collaboration between solar cell device and epitaxial growth centers of expertise combined with Soitec’s decades-long leadership in substrate-bonding and layer-transfer technologies – validates the unique roadmap enabling, thanks to the four junctions structure to target the 50-percent efficiency level. This roadmap marks a major competitiveness breakthrough in the photovoltaic industry.

Soitec’s four-junction solar cell has achieved today a peak efficiency of 43.6 percent, as confirmed by the Fraunhofer ISE Calibration Laboratory. This measurement was achieved at a concentration level of 319 (319 suns). The new cell has demonstrated more than 43 percent energy-generating efficiency over a concentration range between 250 and 500.

Today’s triple-junction solar cells used in commercial concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules in real-world applications are approaching their physical limits in converting sunlight into renewable energy. Soitec’s four- junction cell is designed to increase the conversion efficiency of commercial CPV systems to the highest level ever achieved by any photovoltaic technology. Based on the initial results obtained using very few integration runs, Soitec is well positioned at the front of the efficiency race.

The innovative four-junction cell uses two new, highly sophisticated dual-junction sub cells grown on different III-V compound