CR1620 battery.Sharp develops world's highest 37.7% solar cell

Sharp, a leading Japanese solar cell manufacturer, issued a press release on the 5th announcing that it has developed a triple-junction compound solar cell Cell (Triple-Junction Compound Solar Cell) with the highest photoelectric conversion rate in the world, with a conversion rate as high as 37.7%.

Sharp, a leading Japanese solar cell manufacturer, issued a press release on the 5th announcing that it has developed a compound 3-junction solar cell Cell (Triple-Junction Compound Solar Cell) with the highest photoelectric conversion rate in the world, with a conversion rate as high as 37.7%.

Sharp said that compound solar cells are different from the current mainstream solar cells that use silicon as the material. Instead, they use compounds composed of two or more elements such as indium as materials to form a photo-absorption layer and have a high conversion rate. Solar cells are generally used in satellites, but Sharp plans to utilize the results of this research and development to expand their use to aircraft and automobiles.

Sharp has been developing compound 3-junction solar cells since 2000 by stacking three light-absorbing layers (upper, middle and bottom layers) to improve the conversion rate. After that, it successfully increased the conversion rate to 36.9% in 2011. This time It further increased to a level of 37.7%.