Reduction of bulk and surface recombination in GaAs for improved solar cell performance

Author

Wong, D. ; Schlesinger, Tuviah E. ; Milnes, Arthur G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

11

Issue

7

fYear

1990

fDate

7/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

321

Lastpage

323

Abstract

A technique for suppressing recombination centers and increasing minority-carrier diffusion lengths in bulk n-type GaAs is described. It is shown that such pretreatment of the material leads to substantially improved long-wavelength photocurrent collection in Zn-diffused solar cells fabricated directly in the bulk substrates. Passivation of the front surface of the cells with ammonium sulfide improves their short-wavelength photoresponse. These results suggest the possibility of realizing high-efficiency GaAs solar cells fabricated without the use of costly epitaxial technology.<>

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; gallium arsenide; passivation; semiconductor technology; solar cells; (NH/sub 4/)/sub 2/S treatment; GaAs:Zn solar cells; bulk n-type GaAs; bulk substrates; front surface passivation; high-efficiency GaAs solar cells; improved long-wavelength photocurrent collection; increasing minority-carrier diffusion lengths; pretreatment; semiconductors; short-wavelength photoresponse; solar cell performance; technique for suppressing recombination centers; Annealing; Costs; Epitaxial growth; Gallium arsenide; Passivation; Photoconductivity; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; Surface waves;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.56488

Filename

56488