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Solar Junction moves further into space

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Lattice matched, four junction space cell now under development

Solar Junction, a provider of multi-junction solar cells for terrestrial concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) applications, is announcing a plan to become the world's leading provider of solar cells for space power applications. 

At the 2015 Space Power Workshop in Manhattan Beach, California (May 11-14), the company presented on its next-generation space solar cells, in particular a fully lattice-matched, four-junction (4J) space cell product. Enabled by its proprietary dilute nitride technology platform, the 4J cell has predicted air mass zero (AM0) efficiencies exceeding 33 percent by 2016. 

Solar Junction is currently producing a high efficiency three-junction (3J) space cell using its dilute nitride material as the bottom active junction on a GaAs substrate. 2014 saw the first commercial shipment of Solar Junction's 3J space cell, with AM0 efficiencies exceeding 31 percent, and the 3J product is undergoing qualification. 

During the 2015 Space Power Workshop, The Aerospace Corporation presented radiation degradation results from two Aerospace AeroCube picosats currently on-orbit (since June 2014) carrying Solar Junction 3J space cells. The results demonstrate that dilute nitride materials have radiation hardness comparable to conventional cells and show great promise for Solar Junction's next-gen space products.

Early prototypes of Solar Junction's next-gen 4J space cell with an industry-standard Germanium bottom junction have reached AM0 efficiencies of 31 percent. By late 2016, Solar Junction plans bring to market its 4J, lattice-matched, dilute nitride, Germanium bottom junction space cell with a minimum average efficiency of 33 percent.

Since introducing its terrestrial CPV technology over seven years ago, Solar Junction has proven that dilute nitrides can be produced in high volume on 6-inch wafers with industry leading manufacturing yields and significant cost savings using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Solar Junction says it is now poised to enter the space photovoltaics market. 
Its proprietary dilute nitride technology is lattice matched on both Ge and GaAs substrates, provides a range of bandgaps between 0.9 eV and 1.4 eV, and is the only technology platform that enables low-cost monolithic growth beyond three junctions.
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