The reliability of III–V solar cell with copper based contacts as low-cost metallurgy option for solar cells
including Cu-based Cu/Ge/Pd contact on n-type GaAs and Cu/Pt/Ti/Pt contact on p-type Ge is studied in
this paper. The Cu-based contacts have low specific contact resistances of the order of 106 O cm2. The
solar cells with the proposed Cu-based structures were subjected to high-temperature annealing
(250 C) and a high DC current (6.5 104 mA/lm2) stress test. Overall, the solar cell adopting these
Cu based contacts remained quite stable and demonstrated excellent performances after these reliability
tests.