Optimization of Growth of GaInNAs Dilute Nitrides for Multi-junction Solar Cell Applications

Author

Shimizu, Yukiko ; Miyashita, Naoya ; Mura, Yusuke ; Uedono, Akira ; Okada, Yoshitaka

Author_Institution

Inst. of Appl. Phys., Tsukuba Univ., Ibaraki

Volume

1

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

811

Lastpage

814

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of growth temperature on the final crystal quality of GaInNAs solar cells in atomic hydrogen-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (H-MBE). A higher growth temperature of ~500degC has been found to be the optimum and resulted in both improved crystal quality and solar cell performance. The photoluminescence (PL) peak intensity was one order of magnitude stronger and the electron mobility of 250 cm²/Vs was 30 % higher for GaInNAs films grown at T_sub=520degC than at the more conventional growth temperature of 480degC. We have also investigated the vacancy-type defects in Ga(In)NAs films and found that the defect concentrations were as low as a LEC-GaAs substrate. Our unoptimized p-GaAs/i-n-GaInNAs heterojunction solar cell showed a maximum quantum efficiency of ~50 % and a low diode factor of 1.4

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; electron mobility; gallium arsenide; gallium compounds; indium compounds; molecular beam epitaxial growth; optimisation; photoluminescence; semiconductor epitaxial layers; semiconductor growth; semiconductor heterojunctions; solar cells; vacancies (crystal); 480 C; 500 C; GaAs-GaInNAs; MBE; atomic hydrogen-assisted molecular beam epitaxy; defect concentrations; dilute nitrides; diode factor; electron mobility; multijunction solar cell; optimization; photoluminescence peak intensity; quantum efficiency; semiconductor heterojunction; thin films; vacancy-type defects; Atomic beams; Atomic layer deposition; Diodes; Electron mobility; Heterojunctions; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Photoluminescence; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; Temperature; Dilute nitrides; Multi junction solar cell; RF-MBE;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279580

Filename

4059753