Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material for high cost high efficiency solar cells and is used for single crystalline thin film solar cells and for multi junction solar cells.
Gaas solar panel.
The first known operational use of gaas solar cells in space was for the venera 3 mission launched in 1965.
Gallium arsenide gaas is the highest performance solar material currently available boasting conversion efficiencies in excess of 40 nearly double those of crystalline silicon.
In a recent article in the magazine electronic news gallium arsenide was tested on a germanium substrate.
Instead of being constructed from solid silicon wafers like mono or poly crystalline solar panels amorphous panels are made by depositing non crystalline silicon on a substrate like glass plastic or metal one layer of silicon on an amorphous solar panel can be as thin.
Like conventional solar panels amorphous solar panels are made from silicon but they are constructed in a different way.
Cubesat gaas solar panel nanoavionics gaas triple junction gainp gainas ge epitaxial structure solar arrays are made of high performance triple junction space grade solar cells that enable missions with high power requirements.
This means that it can produce nearly twice as much power in a given surface area.
Gallium arsenide solar cells can have roughly 25 efficiency rating with only one junction.