Thermal management of concentrated multi-junction solar cells with graphene-enhanced thermal interface materials

Abstract

We report results of experimental investigation of temperature rise in concentrated multi-junction photovoltaic solar cells with graphene-enhanced thermal interface materials. Graphene and few-layer graphene fillers, produced by a scalable environmentally-friendly liquid-phase exfoliation technique, were incorporated into conventional thermal interface materials. Graphene-enhanced thermal interface materials have been applied between a solar cell and heat sink to improve heat dissipation. The performance of the multi-junction solar cells has been tested using an industry-standard solar simulator under a light concentration of up to 2000 suns. It was found that the application of graphene-enhanced thermal interface materials allows one to reduce the solar cell temperature and increase the open-circuit voltage. We demonstrated that the use of graphene helps in recovering a significant amount of the power loss due to solar cell overheating. The obtained results are important for the development of new technologies for thermal management of concentrated photovoltaic solar cells.