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A copper indium gallium selenide solar cell (or CIGS cell, sometimes CI(G)S or CIS cell) is a thin-film solar cell used to convert sunlight into electric power. It is manufactured by depositing a thin layer of copper indium gallium selenide solid solution on glass or plastic backing, along with electrodes on the front and back to collect current.
Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material for high-cost, high-efficiency solar cells and is used for single-crystalline thin-film solar cells and for multi-junction solar cells. [35] The first known operational use of GaAs solar cells in space was for the Venera 3 mission, launched in 1965.
Physically, the main property of a MJ solar cell is having more than one pn junction in order to catch a larger photon energy spectrum while the main property of the thin film solar cell is to use thin films instead of thick layers in order to decrease the cost efficiency ratio. As of 2010, MJ solar panels are more expensive than others. These ...
In the early 1990s the technology used for space solar cells diverged from the silicon technology used for terrestrial panels, with the spacecraft application shifting to gallium arsenide-based III-V semiconductor materials, which then evolved into the modern III-V multijunction photovoltaic cell used on spacecraft.
In a typical solar cell, the photovoltaic effect is used to generate electricity from sunlight. The light-absorbing or "active layer" of the solar cell is typically a semiconducting material, meaning that there is a gap in its energy spectrum between the valence band of localized electrons around host ions and the conduction band of higher-energy electrons which are free to move throughout the ...
Numerical analysis shows that the "perfect" single-layer solar cell should have a bandgap of 1.13 eV, almost exactly that of silicon. Such a cell can have a maximum theoretical power conversion efficiency of 33.7% – the solar power below red (in the infrared) is lost, and the extra energy of the higher colors is also lost.
The Mars Exploration Rovers and several satellites use triple-junction gallium arsenide on germanium cells. [75] Gallium is also a component in photovoltaic compounds (such as copper indium gallium selenium sulfide Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S) 2) used in solar panels as a cost-efficient alternative to crystalline silicon. [76]
These use a combination of several layers of indium gallium phosphide, gallium arsenide and germanium to harvest more energy from the solar spectrum. Leading edge multi-junction cells are capable of exceeding 39.2% under non-concentrated AM1.5G illumination and 47.1% using concentrated AM1.5G illumination.
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