Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-06-24 Origin: Site
GaAs possesses many outstanding properties and has a wide range of applications, which can be broadly classified into four major areas: RF (Radio Frequency), PHOTONICS, LED (Light Emitting Diode), and PV (Photovoltaic).
In photovoltaic (PV) technology, the solar cell is the most critical component, and most cells currently used in PV power generation are based on semiconductor technologies. GaAs, a III–V compound semiconductor material, has a bandgap that matches the solar spectrum well and exhibits good high-temperature tolerance. Compared with silicon solar cells, GaAs solar cells offer superior performance.
Figure 4 shows a miniature thin‑film double‑junction GaAs photodiode device fabricated by Sheng and co‑workers [4], who investigated its photon and carrier transport behavior under excitation light of different wavelengths and intensities. Experimental measurements indicate that the photon recycling effect is closely related to parameters such as excitation wavelength and power. Under blue–violet light (400–480 nm) and near‑infrared light (~800 nm), the photocurrent generated by the double‑junction cell exhibits superlinear and linear characteristics with respect to excitation power, respectively. Moreover, under high‑intensity excitation, the photon recycling effect can significantly improve the current matching between the subcells, enabling broadband, high‑efficiency photoresponse (wavelength range 400–800 nm, with external quantum efficiency approaching 50%).
Nanofluids have recently been recognized as promising coolants in PV/T systems. Samir and colleagues [5] proposed a novel cascaded nanofluid PV/T configuration with independent channels, where one channel controls the optical properties and the other enhances heat extraction from the PV cell. In the first scenario, the optical nanofluid acts as a liquid optical band‑pass filter above the PV cell. In the second scenario, the thermal nanofluid removes heat from the rear side of the PV cell. Simulations were performed for GaAs‑ and Si‑based PV cells at various concentration ratios. The results show that the optimal optical nanofluid filter can deliver approximately 82% of the ideal spectrum energy to either GaAs or Si PV cells. In terms of electrical efficiency under concentrated systems (C = 45 for GaAs and C = 30 for Si), the separate‑channel system (D‑1) outperforms the dual‑channel design (D‑2) by 8.6%. Increasing the volume fraction of the thermal nanofluid from 0.001 to 1.5% improves the overall efficiency of the D‑1 system incorporating GaAs (C = 160) and Si (C = 100) by about 5.8% and 4.6%, respectively. These results indicate that the PV/T configuration with separate channels has further potential for development in high‑concentration (C > 100) solar energy systems.
In terms of commercial applications, the high manufacturing cost of GaAs has limited its use in ground‑based PV power plants. However, new growth techniques have substantially shortened the fabrication time of solar cells, which is expected to bring significant reductions in process costs and potentially enable large‑scale commercial adoption of GaAs cells.
