A new high volume MOVPE reactor for III-V solar cells

Author

Ermer, J. ; Vijaykumar, P.S. ; Chang, K.I. ; Lillington, D.R. ; Cavicchi, B.T. ; Woelk, E. ; Strauch, G. ; Schmitz, D. ; Jurgensen, H.

Author_Institution

Spectrolab. Inc., Sylmar, CA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

1994

fDate

5-9 Dec 1994

Firstpage

2141

Abstract

A new MOVPE reactor is described which allows cost effective manufacturing of GaAs/Ge solar cells. The reactor, which has a batch size in excess of 0.25 m², was co-developed by Spectrolab and Aixtron Semiconductor Technologies over a two year time frame and was installed at Spectrolab in late 1993. Manufacturing readiness data on large area single junction GaAs/Ge solar cells show that the thickness and compositional uniformity of GaAs and AlGaAs layers grown in the system are ±3%, and ±1.5% respectively. There is excellent correlation between empirical data and simulations performed during the initial reactor development phase. The minimum average AM0, 28°C efficiencies of 7 mil and 5.5 mil single junction GaAs/Ge solar cells, manufactured from material grown on this system, are over 18.5%

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; gallium arsenide; p-n junctions; semiconductor epitaxial layers; solar cells; vapour phase epitaxial growth; 18.5 percent; 28 C; Aixtron Semiconductor Technologies; AlGaAs layers; GaAs layers; GaAs-Ge; GaAs/Ge solar cells; III-V solar cells; Spectrolab; compositional uniformity; high volume MOVPE reactor; single junction GaAs/Ge solar cells; Costs; Epitaxial growth; Epitaxial layers; Gallium arsenide; III-V semiconductor materials; Inductors; Manufacturing; Photovoltaic cells; Satellites; Semiconductor device manufacture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 1994., Conference Record of the Twenty Fourth. IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1994, 1994 IEEE First World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1460-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.1994.521645

Filename

521645