[21p-C301-1~10] 3.12 Semiconductor optical devices (formerly 3.13)

[21p-C301-7] Hydrogen generation of 3-junction III-V solar cells with electroplated platinum black

〇(M1)Harufumi Takada¹, Ryoutaro Fujita¹, Taiga Shibuya¹, Keisuke Ota¹, Shiro Uchida¹ (1.CIT)

Keywords:artificial photosynthesis

Research on hydrogen production by artificial photosynthesis using multi-junction compound solar cells has attracted much attention. In this study, we performed a plating pretreatment on triple-junction solar cells (InGaP/InGaAs/Ge). We increased the electrode width by platinum black electrolytic plating to investigate the electrode width and S.L. (Shadowing Loss) conditions for efficient water splitting. Two samples with an electrode width of 40.5 μm (S.L= 27.4%) and 32.1 μm (S.L= 19.62%) were prepared. These two samples showed the average current density and the solar to hydrogen efficiency (STH) of 5.76 mA/cm2 (STH=2.1%) and 7.30 mA/cm2 (STH=4.9%), respectively. This result suggested that the larger surface area of the platinum black serving as a hydrogen production catalyst led to the lower hydrogen production efficiency.