Patent ID: 8263855

Claim:
An integrated semiconductor structure comprising: a multijunction solar cell including a first photoactive junction formed in a substrate forming a bottom subcell where there are no subcells located between the bottom subcell and the lower surface of the substrate, and a second photoactive junction formed in a region overlying said bottom subcell and forming a second subcell; a buffer structure disposed on the substrate and located between the substrate and the second subcell; and means for passing current when said multijunction solar cell is shaded, wherein said means is on the same substrate as the multijunction solar cell, wherein said means and said buffer structure have an identical sequence of semiconductor layers, wherein each semiconductor layer in the means has the same composition as the corresponding layer in the buffer structure and is provided in a process that is the same as the process for providing the corresponding layer in the buffer structure, and wherein the means for passing current is electrically connected in parallel across the multijunction solar cell.