Solar Junction surpasses its previous World-Record with certified 44.1% PV cell efficiency on IQE’s production qualified wafers

24 August 2013

On August 22nd, 2013, IQE plc (Cardiff, UK) announced that its high-volume, production qualified material has been independently certified as achieving 44.1% solar photovoltaic (PV) cell efficiency by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), surpassing Solar Junctions (San Jose, Calif., U.S.) previous World Record for a standard triple junction CPV cell.

In October 2012 Solar Junction announced that it had reached 44% cell efficiency with its multi-junction technology.

A benchmark for multi-junction solar cell production efficiency

“Breaking a World Record is a major achievement, but improving on our most recent record using high-volume production equipment produced in conjunction with our manufacturing partner IQE, and Solar Junction’s fabrication line in Sunnyvale, CA, is dramatically more significant,” said Vijit Sabnis, CEO at Solar Junction.

“This result is a testament to our close partnership with IQE, Solar Junction’s dilute nitride technology and our exceptional team. We continue to be the benchmark for multi-junction solar cell production efficiency to assist our customers in driving CPV costs down.”

The wafers, produced using IQE’s high-volume MBE tools, were processed by Solar Junction, a developer of high efficiency multi-junction solar cells for the concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) market.

The standard three-junction solar cells are believed to set a new world record for production scale CPV wafer technology and demonstrate improved efficiency over Solar Junction’s previous World Record reported in October 2012.

Dr. Drew Nelson, IQE Chief Executive, added: “Following our recent announcement of full qualification of our high volume 4” and 6” CPV technology, surpassing Solar Junction’s previous cell efficiency record is a massive achievement.”

“Improvements in CPV cell efficiencies translate to highly significant overall cost reduction in terms of installation and energy generation in utility scale solar farms. The fact that this has been achieved on production qualified platforms is a major milestone.”