Efficiency considerations for polycrystalline GaAs thin-film solar cells

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Abstract
The effect of grain boundaries upon the efficiency of polycrystalline GaAs thin-film solar cells is analyzed. Solar-cell properties are calculated on a simple model where grain boundaries act as recombination centers to reduce the minority-carrier diffusion length in the solar cell’s active layer and increase the space-charge layer recombination current. An effective diffusion length is expressed in terms of grain size, allowing the calculation of short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage. Excellent agreement is obtained between theory and experiment. The fabrication of thin-film GaAs solar cells with an efficiency greater than 18% appears to be possible if the grain size in the thin-film GaAs layer with thickness of 3 μm is larger than 1000 μm.