Freiburg, May 22, 2013 In an ambitious industry project with the French company Soitec, Fraunhofer ISE is currently developing a new generation of multi-junction solar cells with efficiency potential as high as 50 % under concentrated sunlight. For this, the researchers are replacing the conventional triple-junction solar cell – which consists of semiconductors from groups III and V of the periodic system – by a new four-junction device. Two dual-junction cell structures are first grown on separate III-V compound semiconductor substrates and then fused together so efficiently that the interface promotes the current flow through the four-junction solar cell device. Multi-junction solar cells are used in concentrator PV power plants.

Secretary Ratan P. Watal in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India and Prof. Eicke Weber, Institute Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Freiburg signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) a short time ago in Berlin in the presence of Sujata Singh, the Indian Ambassador to Germany. The cooperation focuses on research, demonstration and pilot projects in the areas of photovoltaics, solar thermal and hydrogen.