US Navy develops new triple-junction solar cell
The Electronics Technology and Science Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) announced it has developed a
new triple-junction solar cell with a potential 50 percent efficiency. The NRL research team, which has worked in cooperation with scientists of Imperial College London and MicroLink Devices, Inc., Niles, Ill., has designed the multi-junction cell with novel semiconductor, lattice-matched material to achieve direct band gaps of 0.7 to 1.8 electron volts (eV). According to Robert Walters, NRL research physicist, »having all lattice-matched materials with this wide range of band gaps is the key to breaking the current world record«. NRL scientists have recently been awarded a US Department of Energy (DoE), Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) project to execute a three-year program on material and device development for industrial needs. According to NRL, the current world record efficiency for triple-junction cells under concentrated illumination is 44 percent. Source U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
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