High band gap solar cells for underwater Photovoltaic applications

Abstract

The use of autonomous systems to provide situational awareness and long-term environment monitoring is increasing. Photovoltaics (PV) has been favored as a long-endurance power source for many of these applications. To date the use of PV has been limited to space and terrestrial (dry land) installations. The need for an extended power source also exists for underwater (UW) systems, which currently rely on surface PV arrays or batteries. In this paper we demonstrate that high band gap InGaP solar cells can provide useful power underwater.