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，并建立在加拿大现有能力的基础上，为太阳能系统开发世界上最高效的光伏电池。通过利用过去10-20年在加拿大高科技领域积累的专业知识，该项目使两个大学集团(渥太华大学和L的舍布鲁克大学)能够进一步加强与总部设在渥太华的Cyrium Technologies的现有合作。Cyrium正在商业化生产QDEC产品，最低效率为38%，以及效率超过~40%的高性能太阳能电池。该项目的目标是利用这一极好的结果，并将其提高10%，以便使用这些设备的光伏系统将能够在给定的照明量下提供显著更多的电力，从而更经济。它将超越现有的3结电池，采用一种新的4结结构，这种结构也使用了集成的量子井纳米结构，该结构是使用一种名为化学束外延(CBE)的先进材料生长形式开发的。CBE是制造这些设备的一种有吸引力的工艺，因为它可以非常容易地转移到可扩展的制造环境中。从事该项目的研究人员将在工业环境中体验从设备设计到制造和系统测试的所有步骤，并将从项目活动中脱颖而出，成为令人兴奋和不断扩大的市场部门(目前以每年25%的速度增长)中备受欢迎的HQP技能。该项目有可能使每栋普通建筑每年减少高达60吨的二氧化碳排放，并将为世界各地的电网和离网用户提供经济的电力解决方案。该团队计划利用这个项目来继续他们非常成功的日出项目，并补充现有的由省支持的位于渥太华的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.