Material and antireflection structure and methods of manufacturing are provided that produce efficient photovoltaic power conversion from thin film solar cells on flexible substrates. Step-graded antireflection structures are placed on the front of the device structure. Materials of different energy gap are combined in the depletion region of at least one of the semiconductor junctions within the thin film device structure. Conductive, low refractive index layers are deposited on the bottom of the thin film device structure to form an omni-directional back reflector contact.

A device, system, and method for solar cell construction and bonding/layer transfer are disclosed herein. An exemplary structure of solar cell construction involves providing a monocrystalline donor layer. A solder bonding layer bonds the donor layer to a carrier substrate. A porous layer may be used to separate the donor layer.

Systems and Methods for Advanced Ultra-High-Performance InP Solar Cells are provided. In one embodiment, an InP photovoltaic device comprises: a p-n junction absorber layer comprising at least one InP layer; a front surface confinement layer; and a back surface confinement layer; wherein either the front surface confinement layer or the back surface confinement layer forms part of a High-Low (HL) doping architecture; and wherein either the front surface confinement layer or the back surface confinement layer forms part of a heterointerface system architecture.

Highly transparent (up to 92% light transmittance) wood composites have been developed. The process of fabricating the transparent wood composites includes lignin removal followed by index-matching polymer infiltration resulted in fabrication of the transparent wood composites with preserved naturally aligned nanoscale fibers. The thickness of the transparent wood composite can be tailored by controlling the thickness of the initial wood substrate. The optical transmittance can be tailored by selecting infiltrating polymers with different refractive indices. The transparent wood composites have a range of applications in biodegradable electronics, optoelectronics, as well as structural and energy efficient building materials. By coating the transparent wood composite layer on the surface of GaAs thin film solar cell, an 18% enhancement in the overall energy conversion efficiency has been attained.

A multijunction solar cell including an upper first solar subcell having a first band gap and positioned for receiving an incoming light beam; and a second solar subcell disposed below and adjacent to and lattice matched with said upper first solar subcell, and having a second band gap smaller than said first band gap; wherein at least one of the solar subcells has a graded band gap throughout the thickness of at least a portion of its emitter layer and base layer.

A light sensor includes a lower electrode layer, an absorption layer and an upper electrode layer. The absorption layer is located on the lower electrode layer, in which the absorption layer includes a material that has an electron mobility greater than 300 cm.sup.2/Vs and greater than twice as many as a hole mobility. The upper electrode layer is located on the absorption layer, and is configured to collect the scattered high-speed excess electrons and to leave low-speed excess holes near the edges of the upper electrode layer. A downward photocurrent is generated by the photovoltage in the absorption layer due to the formation of positively charged region near the upper surface.

The present invention is directed to a position sensing detector made of a photodiode having a semi insulating substrate layer; a buffered layer that is formed directly atop the semi-insulating substrate layer, an absorption layer that is formed directly atop the buffered layer substrate layer, a cap layer that is formed directly atop the absorption layer, a plurality of cathode electrodes electrically coupled to the buffered layer or directly to the cap layer, and at least one anode electrode electrically coupled to a p-type region in the cap layer. The position sensing detector has a photo-response non-uniformity of less than 2% and a position detection error of less than 10 m across the active area.

A method for providing a textured layer in an optoelectronic device is disclosed. The method includes depositing a template layer on a first layer. The template layer has significant inhomogeneity either in thickness or in composition, or both, including the possibility of forming one or more islands to provide at least one textured surface of the island layer. The method also includes exposing the template layer and the first layer to an etching process to create or alter at least one textured surface. The altered at least one textured surface is operative to cause scattering of light.

A method for transferring an assembly of oriented nanowires from a liquid interface onto a surface including providing a first liquid and a second liquid, wherein the first and second liquids phase separate into a bottom phase, a top phase and an interface between the bottom phase and the top phase, providing nanowires in the first and second liquids such that the majority of the nanowires are located at the interface and providing the nanowires onto a substrate such that a majority of the nanowires are aligned with respect to each other on the substrate.

A light receiving apparatus includes a light receiving device including a compound semiconductor substrate, photodiodes, and bump electrodes; and a semiconductor integrated device including a silicon substrate and read-out circuits. The integrated device is bonded with the light receiving device to face each other in a direction of a first axis through the bump electrodes. The light receiving device has a back surface with first and second back edges extending in a direction of a second axis intersecting with the first axis. The light receiving device has a first slope face extending from the first back edge along a first reference plane, and a second slope face extending from the second back edge along a second reference plane. The back surface of the light receiving device extends along a third reference plane intersecting with the first axis. The first and second reference planes are inclined with the third reference plane.