New photocell efficiency record: 44.7%

A group of specialists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Center (Berlin) created a photocell with a record efficiency of 44.7% ( press release ). Thus, they broke the Sharp June record of 44.4% and their own May achievement of 43.6%.

Like some other multilayer solar cells, this chip is designed to work with a concentrator that concentrates the flow of sunlight by 297.3 times, that is, the area of ​​the lens of the concentrator is about 300 times the area of ​​the solar cell. Efficiency of 44.7% relates to a wide range of solar radiation: from ultraviolet to infrared. The energy of waves with a length of 200-1800 nm is taken by four layers of the cell.


Energy intake from waves of different lengths by four layers of a cell. The vertical axis is the external quantum efficiency.


Technical characteristics of the solar cell.

Researchers believe that their achievement is a significant step towards reducing the cost of solar energy and achieving a psychological mark of efficiency of 50%. At this pace, given the competition of many research teams and production concerns and the rapid progress in this area, a mark of 50% is likely to be taken very soon. In general, an increase in efficiency by 1 point in four months indicates a very high potential of four-layer cells.

Ultra-efficient multilayer photo cells with concentrators (CPV) used to be used only in the space field, where they will be used in the first place. This is good news for spacecraft manufacturers who can collect more energy with the same solar panel area.

In recent years, CPV cells are gradually finding application on Earth. Actually, the aforementioned Soitec startup , created in 2005, is engaged in the commercialization of this technology.


Soitec experimental setup