High‐efficiency flexible III‐V photovoltaic solar cells based on single‐crystal‐like thin films directly grown on metallic tapes

Abstract

Abstract This study demonstrates the first flexible single‐junction III‐V photovoltaic solar cells (SCs) based on single‐crystal‐like gallium arsenide (GaAs) thin films on a low‐cost metal substrate by direct and continuous deposition, which can bypass expensive single crystal wafer fabrication. The two‐dimensional modeling of the GaAs SC is developed and used to study feasibility of single‐crystal‐like GaAs thin films for high performance SC devices. A promising SC device performance characteristic with an open‐circuit voltage of 560 mV and short circuit current of 19.4 mA/cm 2 , resulting in a conversion efficiency of ~7.6%, is demonstrated.