Technology of high efficiency radiation resistant AlGaAs/GaAs solar cells was developed at first by V. Andreev's team in the 1969-1970. Since the beginning of 1970s photovoltaics has become the main field of Andreev's team interest. The world first large-scale production of hetestructure arrays for space application was started at the NPO "Kvant" using the technology developed at the IOFFE Institute. These space arrays powered a lot of Russian spacecrafts in 1970-80s. One of these arrays of 70m2 mounted in 1986 in the base module of the MIR Space Station operated during its entire service life without significant decrease of output power. 

  V.M.Andreev became a Head of Photovoltaics laboratory at Ioffe Institute in 1981. In the 1980s-Laboratory's team continued extensive studies of heterostructure solar cells for space and terrestrial applications, which resulted in the development of high-efficient solar cells operating under concentrated solar radiation and photovoltaic installations with concentrators and solar trackers.

The main fields of research

  • Photovoltaic phenomena in semiconductors
  • Multijunction Solar cells based on III-V nanoheterostructures
  • Photovoltaic conversion of concentrated sunlight
  • Solar/fuel thermophotovoltaics
  • Photovoltaic installations based on multijunction solar cells, Fresnel lenses and solar trackers
  • Testing equipment development for characterization of solar cells and photovoltaic modules