A stacked monolithic upright metamorphic multijunction solar cell, comprising at least one first subcell having a first band gap, a first lattice constant and being made up of germanium by more than 50%, a second subcell, which is disposed above the first subcell and has a second band gap and a second lattice constant, a metamorphic buffer disposed between the first subcell and the second subcell, including a sequence of at least three layers having lattice constants which increase from layer to layer in the direction of the second subcell, and a first tunnel diode, which is situated between the metamorphic buffer and the second subcell and which has an n.sup.+ layer and a p.sup.+ layer, the second band gap being larger than the first band gap, the n.sup.+ layer of the first tunnel diode comprising InAlP, the p.sup.+ layer of the first tunnel diode comprising an As-containing III-V material.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell, and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell from among the upper first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and being in a range of 20 to 300 MeV greater than a band gap in the active layer in both the emitter layer and the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell, and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell from among the upper first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and being in a range of 20 to 300 MeV greater than a band gap in the active layer in both the emitter layer and the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction.

An image decoding device includes a quantization parameter deriving unit configured to correct a value of a decoded quantization parameter of a target block depending on whether or not adaptive color transform has been applied to the target block, and then set, as the quantization parameter of the target block, the larger of the corrected value of the quantization parameter and a predetermined value of 0 or more.

An image decoding device includes a quantization parameter deriving unit configured to correct a value of a decoded quantization parameter of a target block depending on whether or not adaptive color transform has been applied to the target block, and then set, as the quantization parameter of the target block, the larger of the corrected value of the quantization parameter and a predetermined value of 0 or more.

An image decoding device includes a quantization parameter deriving unit configured to correct a value of a decoded quantization parameter of a target block depending on whether or not adaptive color transform has been applied to the target block, and then set, as the quantization parameter of the target block, the larger of the corrected value of the quantization parameter and a predetermined value of 0 or more.

Solar cell structures comprising a plurality of solar cells, wherein each solar cell is separated from adjacent solar cell via a tunnel junction and/or a resonant tunneling structure (RTS), are described. Solar cells are implemented on Ge, Si, GaN, sapphire, and glass substrates. Each of the plurality of solar cells is at least partially constructed from a cell material which harnesses photons having energies in a predetermined energy range. In one embodiment each solar cell comprises of at least two sub-cells. It also describes a nano-patterned region/layer to implement high efficiency tandem/multi-junction solar cells that reduces dislocation density due to mismatch in lattice constants in the case of single crystalline and/or polycrystalline solar cells. Finally, solar structure could be used as light-emitting diodes when biased in forward biasing mode. The mode of operation could be determined by a programmed microprocessor.

An image decoding device includes a quantization parameter deriving unit configured to correct a value of a decoded quantization parameter of a target block depending on whether or not adaptive color transform has been applied to the target block, and then set, as the quantization parameter of the target block, the larger of the corrected value of the quantization parameter and a predetermined value of 0 or more.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell, and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell from among the upper first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and being in a range of 20 to 300 MeV less than a band gap in the active layer in both the emitter layer and the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; a second solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the upper first solar subcell, and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; and a third solar subcell disposed under and adjacent to the second solar subcell and having an emitter and base layers forming a photoelectric junction; wherein at least one of the base and emitter layers of at least a particular solar subcell from among the upper first solar subcell, the second solar subcell, and the third solar subcell has a graded band gap throughout at least a portion of thickness of its active layer adjacent to the photoelectric junction and being in a range of 20 to 300 MeV less than a band gap in the active layer in both the emitter layer and the base layer spaced away from the photoelectric junction.