4CPV: Materials and processes for quad-junction concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar cells with conversion efficiencies in the 45%-50% range, grown by chemical beam epitaxy

该项目涉及可再生能源，并利用加拿大现有的能力，为太阳能系统开发世界上效率最高的光生伏打电池。通过利用过去10-20年在加拿大高科技部门积累的专门知识，该项目使两个大学集团（渥太华大学和舍布鲁克大学）能够进一步加强与渥太华Cyrium技术公司的现有合作。Cyrium正在商业化生产其最低效率为38%的QDEC产品，以及效率超过40%的高性能生产太阳能电池。该项目的目标是利用这一出色的结果，并将其提高10%，以便使用这些设备的光伏系统能够在给定的照明量下提供更多的电力，从而更加经济。它将超越现有的3结电池，采用新的4结结构，该结构还使用集成量子阱纳米结构，该结构使用称为“化学束外延”（CBE）的先进材料生长形式开发。CBE是制造这些设备的有吸引力的工艺，因为它可以非常容易地转移到可扩展的制造环境中。参与该项目的研究人员将在工业环境中经历从设备设计到制造和系统测试的所有步骤，并将在令人兴奋和不断扩大的市场领域（目前以25%/年的速度增长）中成为HQP技能的热门人选。该项目有潜力每年为每栋建筑减少多达60吨的二氧化碳排放量，并将为全球电网和离网消费者提供经济的电力解决方案。该团队计划利用这个项目来延续他们非常成功的日出项目，并补充uOttawa现有的省级支持的APECS项目。

This project addresses renewable energy sources, and builds on existing Canadian capability to develop the world's most efficient photovoltaic cells for solar energy systems. By building on expertise gathered in the Canadian high-tech sector over the past 10-20 years, this project enables two university groups (Universityof Ottawa and l'université de Sherbrooke) to further their existing collaborations with Ottawa-based Cyrium Technologies. Cyrium are commercially manufacturing their QDEC product with a minimum efficiency of 38%, as well as high-performance production solar cells exceeding ~40% efficiency. The project aims to take this excellent result and improve it by as much as 10 per cent, so that photovoltaic systems using these devices will be able to deliver substantially more electricity for a given amount of illumination, and thus more economically. It will do this by going beyond the existing 3-junction cells to a new 4-junction structure that also uses integrated quantum well nanostructures developed using an advanced form of materials growth called 'Chemical Beam Epitaxy' (CBE). CBE is an attractive process for making these devices because it can transfer very readily to a scalable manufacturing environment. The researchers working on this project will experience all the steps from device design to manufacture and system testing in an industrial environment, and will emerge from the project activity as highly-sought-after HQP skills in an exciting and expanding market sector (currently growing at 25%/year). The project has the potential to eliminate up to 60 tons of CO2 emissions per year per average building, and will enable economical power solutions for on-grid and off-grid consumers around the world. The team plans to use this project to follow on from their very successful SUNRISE project and also to complement the existing Provincially-supported APECS project at uOttawa.