Conversion efficiency improvement of ELO GaAs solar cell, deposited on water soluble sacrificial buffer

Sharma, Sahil; Favela, Carlos A.; Yu, Bo; Galstyan, Eduard; Selvamanickam, Venkat

doi:10.1016/j.surfcoat.2023.129282

Conversion efficiency improvement of ELO GaAs solar cell, deposited on water soluble sacrificial buffer

Journal Article · Wed Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Surface and Coatings Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2023.129282· OSTI ID:2418721

Sharma, Sahil ^[1]; Favela, Carlos A. ^[2]; Yu, Bo ^[2]; Galstyan, Eduard ^[2]; Selvamanickam, Venkat ^[2]

Univ. of Houston, TX (United States); OSTI
Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)

Here, we demonstrate the improvement of power conversion efficiency of an epitaxially-lifted-off single junction GaAs solar cell deposited on a water-soluble sacrificial buffer architecture by introducing an additional germanium (Ge) interlayer between GaAs and the fluoride buffer. The epitaxial lift-off (ELO) technique has been extensively used to separate III-V device layers from their single crystal GaAs substrates. However, conventional ELO requires the use of concentrated hydrofluoric acid (HF) for extended times to etch out the sacrificial layer, subsequently degrading the surface roughness of the parent wafer. As a result, the wafer has to undergo expensive and intensive chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) processes, costing about 25% of a pristine 6-inch GaAs substrate. In our previous work, we demonstrated a method to eliminating the need for CMP post-processing by using water-assisted ELO (H₂O-ELO). A water-soluble, 3-layer buffer architecture was developed using alkaline earth compounds. However, devices suffered low performance due to a high defect density in the GaAs active layers. A Ge interlayer was introduced to provide a more favorable surface energy for GaAs growth, which leads to an improvement of GaAs crystal quality. The Ge deposition conditions were optimized to achieve a high-quality Ge layer on triple-layer fluoride buffer. Single junction GaAs devices fabricated on Ge/(Ca,Sr)F₂/BaF₂/(Ca,Sr)F₂ showed improvement of solar cell performance parameters featuring increases in V_oc by 23.7%, and fill factor (F.F.) by 4.9%, which results in an overall improvement of power conversion efficiency from 10.3% to 12.69%.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)

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

Grant/Contract Number:: EE0008982

OSTI ID:: 2418721

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1960962

Journal Information:: Surface and Coatings Technology, Journal Name: Surface and Coatings Technology Journal Issue: C Vol. 456; ISSN 0257-8972

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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