Impact of extended defects on recombination in CdTe heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Zaunbrecher, Katherine N.; Kuciauskas, Darius; Swartz, Craig H.; Dippo, Pat; Edirisooriya, Madhavie; Ogedengbe, Olanrewaju S.; Sohal, Sandeep; Hancock, Bobby L.; LeBlanc, Elizabeth G.; Jayathilaka, Pathiraja A. R. D.; Barnes, Teresa M.; Myers, Thomas H.

doi:10.1063/1.4961989

Title: Impact of extended defects on recombination in CdTe heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Journal Article · Mon Aug 29 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4961989· OSTI ID:1326171

Zaunbrecher, Katherine N. ^[1];

^[2]; Swartz, Craig H. ^[3]; Dippo, Pat ^[2]; Edirisooriya, Madhavie ^[3];

^[3];

^[3]; Hancock, Bobby L. ^[3];

^[3]; Jayathilaka, Pathiraja A. R. D. ^[3]; Barnes, Teresa M. ^[2];

^[3]

Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States)

Heterostructures with CdTe and CdTe_1-xSe_x (x ~ 0.01) absorbers between two wider-band-gap Cd_1-xMg_xTe barriers (x ~ 0.25–0.3) were grown by molecular beam epitaxy to study carrier generation and recombination in bulk materials with passivated interfaces. Using a combination of confocal photoluminescence (PL), time-resolved PL, and low-temperature PL emission spectroscopy, two extended defect types were identified and the impact of these defects on charge-carrier recombination was analyzed. Here, the dominant defects identified by confocal PL were dislocations in samples grown on (211)B CdTe substrates and crystallographic twinning-related defects in samples on (100)-oriented InSb substrates. Low-temperature PL shows that twin-related defects have a zero-phonon energy of 1.460 eV and a Huang-Rhys factor of 1.50, while dislocation-dominated samples have a 1.473-eV zero-phonon energy and a Huang-Rhys factor of 1.22. The charge carrier diffusion length near both types of defects is ~6 μm, suggesting that recombination is limited by diffusion dynamics. For heterostructures with a low concentration of extended defects, the bulk lifetime was determined to be 2.2 μs with an interface recombination velocity of 160 cm/s and an estimated radiative lifetime of 91 μs.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1326171

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1312053

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-67149; APPLAB

Journal Information:: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 9; ISSN 0003-6951

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 15 works

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