| 摘要 |
A photovoltaic device uses a spectrally selective photon partitioner such as a reflector (14) to partition incoming light (10) which is directed towards different solar cells (16, 18), depending upon its energy. Solar cells (16, 18) having low and high energy band gaps are used, in which low energy photons are imaged towards that cell (18) having the lower energy band gap, whereas high energy photons are imaged towards the higher energy band gap cell (16). By more directly imaging photons towards those cells (16, 18) in which they are converted to electricity, absorption losses due to free carriers in the semiconductor layers (30, 32, 36, 38) are reduced. The spectrally selective photon partitioner (14) allows semiconductor layers (30, 32, 36, 38) having different lattice spacings to be optically coupled. <IMAGE> |
