Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Music]
The silicon germanium quantum well solar cell is a combination of different technologies,
one based on our silicon germanium technology and the other is based on the quantum well
and both of these increase the efficiency of the solar cell. The highest efficiency
in a solar cell is when you have a single crystalline material and this is unique because
this single crystalline silicon germanium, so you have higher mobility because the germanium
has three times the mobility of silicon and also because you have a quantum well. When
you have a quantum well, you confine the electrons to one plane and the only way that you can
create a quantum well is to precisely control the layer thicknesses when you build up your
solar cell. And this is something that we can do in our lab. Another thing that makes
this unique is that it's built on the sapphire substrate, so you can actually light it from
the back side. Unlike conventional silicon solar cell, the light isn’t lost by the
conductive layer. That means higher efficiency. NASA would use that on spacecraft or any power
application because if you have a more efficient solar cell that means you need less of them
and so you have less weight and it takes up less volume. The commercial sector would also
benefit because you can have smaller devices that have the same power requirements as a
silicon solar cell but the solar cell would be much smaller. We knew something like this
could replace that because it's a whole different structure; it's a whole different way of looking
at it. And so the silicon germanium technology has resulted in six patents so far and it
and numerous different applications, so some of our other Research efforts are also based
on that technology