Sharp experts have managed to increase the efficiency of energy conversion in a photovoltaic device up to 35.8%.
The Japanese company reported that this index is the record-breaking one among other cells not using solar radiation concentrators.
The new photocell is consisting of three photo-absorption layers. The lower layer is almost always made of Germanium, this way simplifying the manufacturing. At the same time Germanium prevents from high efficiency, that’s why the Japanese engineers used InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide).
Having formed a high InGaAs crystallinity layer the developers placed GaAs and InGaP layers on top of it. As a result the energy conversion efficiency, making up to 31.5% in previous Sharp’s cell models, has been increased to 35.8%.
