Concentrator technology enables less expensive solar cells with greater efficiency. It uses lenses to concentrate light into solar cells, thereby increasing the amount of light absorbed as much as 400-fold. Concentrator technology allows expensive semiconductor material to be replaced with cheaper lens systems while still achieving great efficiency.

In his thesis, physicist Marc Steiner from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar energy Systems ISE in Freiburg presented a way to increase the efficiency of concentrator solar cells.

According to Steiner’s research, the contact between the semiconductor layers in a concentrator solar cell plays a crucial role in the cell’s efficiency. Steiner has developed a new simulation program that optimizes the structure and configuration of the metallic contact fingers.

These calculations yielded unprecedented efficiency factors for concentrator solar cells.
Steiner will be awarded the 2nd Hugo Geiger Prize for his thesis, which is formally entitled “Minimization of serial resistance losses in III-V solar cells with the aid of a SPICE network simulation.”


-  Katrice R. Jalbuena

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Sources:

¹ http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2009/06/ResearchNews06s2009Topic6.jsp
² http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/