High‐efficiency indium gallium nitride/Si tandem photovoltaic solar cells modeling using indium gallium nitride semibulk material: monolithic integration versus 4‐terminal tandem cells

Abstract

Abstract In this work, we present a double‐junction solar cell with a crystalline silicon solar cell as a bottom junction and an indium gallium nitride‐based semibulk‐structured solar cell as a top junction. Using SILVACO Atlas and taking into account polarization effects in III‐N materials, we have shown that 50% of indium is needed to ensure the current matching between the top cell and the bottom cell in 2‐terminal configuration. Such high indium composition is technologically challenging to grow. Thus, we have also modeled a 4‐terminal configuration showing the same performance (i.e. conversion efficiency close to 29%) where only 25% of indium content is needed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.