Development of High-Efficiency GaAs Solar Cells Grown on Nanopatterned GaAs Substrates

Mangum, John S.; Theingi, San; Steiner, Myles A.; McMahon, William E.; Warren, Emily L.

doi:10.1021/acs.cgd.1c00835

Development of High-Efficiency GaAs Solar Cells Grown on Nanopatterned GaAs Substrates

Journal Article · Thu Sep 16 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Crystal Growth and Design

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.1c00835· OSTI ID:1821625

^[1]; Theingi, San ^[1]; ^[1]; McMahon, William E. ^[1]; ^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

One approach to reducing the cost of high-efficiency III–V devices involves adding patterned layers to heteroepitaxial or homoepitaxial substrates to facilitate substrate removal and reuse. However, few studies have focused explicitly on high-quality devices grown over patterned substrates, which is required for any cost saving to be beneficial. In this work, we demonstrate the growth of high-efficiency GaAs solar cells on GaAs substrates patterned with an array of nanoscale SiOX mask stripes. We show that reducing the pattern dimensions to submicron length scales with nanoimprint lithography enables defect-free coalescence. By varying the growth conditions, faceting of the epilayer material during overgrowth of the patterned mask was also controlled. A V/III ratio of 200 during MOVPE overgrowth produced smooth coalesced epilayers, which is desirable for the growth of subsequent device layers. Inverted GaAs front homojunction devices grown on patterned GaAs(001) substrates achieved threading dislocation densities below 5 × 10⁵ cm^–2 and maintained >23% solar cell efficiencies at one sun illumination, equivalent to control devices grown on unpatterned epi-ready substrates.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

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

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1821625

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA--5900-80586; MainId:53975; UUID:e0b8eaee-53a9-49cb-b490-97150a25daea; MainAdminID:61769

Journal Information:: Crystal Growth and Design, Journal Name: Crystal Growth and Design Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 21; ISSN 1528-7483

Publisher:: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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