Performance Evolution of GaAs-Based Solar Cell Towards >30% Efficiency for Space Applications

Abstract

This work investigates the performance of GaAs-based solar cells towards 30% efficiency for space applications. GaAs has a bandgap of 1.42 eV and it is lightweight and flexible. GaAs can absorb higher number of photons and thus exhibit high efficiency. This work has been performed using SCAPS-1D software with the main focus on optimizing the absorber layer thickness in terms of solar cell performance metrics such as fill-factor (FF), efficiency (η), Jsc, and Voc. The highest efficiency of 30.16% has been obtained for the optimized value of the absorber layer thickness of 200 µm, with values of 1.0275 V, 33.168453 mA/cm2, and 88.49% for Voc, Jsc, and Fill Factor respectively. Thus, GaAs-based solar cell paves the way for space applications.