Optical and Electronic Simulation of Gallium Arsenide/Silicon Tandem Four Terminal Solar Cells

A tandem solar cell in a mechanical (stack like) arrangement of gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells is evaluated as a pathway towards higher efficiency terrestrial solar cells. In this work the technical feasibility of the tandem solar cell is investigated. Here we report on the detailed electrical and optical simulations of this structure quantifying various theoretical and practical loss mechanisms in the interface and in the device and indicate that an efficiency improvement of 5.13% would be attainable with present generation of gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells in this configuration. The optical and electrical parameters for gallium arsenide and silicon simulation models were extracted from experimental devices and material vendors. The developed simulation models were validated by comparing the performance of standalone gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells with experimental devices reported in the literature.NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Solar Energy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Solar Energy, 97 (2013), DOI:10.1016/j.solener.2013.07.033Peer reviewe