The efficiency factor of solar cells is crucial for the success of generating electricity from sunlight. Systems in which light is concentrated 400-fold through lenses onto solar cells are proving to be particularly advantageous.
This concentrator technology enables expensive semi-conductor material to be replaced with cheaper lens systems, and greater efficiency to be achieved. In his thesis, physicist Marc Steiner from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg presented a way of increasing the efficiency of these concentrator solar cells even more.
The contacting of the semi-conductor layers plays a crucial role here, and Marc Steiner’s new simulation program optimizes the structure and configuration of the metallic contact fingers. These calculations yielded unprecedented efficiency …