Ideal semiconductors structures for studying photoinduced charge transfer processes

Conference · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:370784

Rosenwaks, Y ^[1]; Thacker, B R; Nozik, A J ^[2]

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1. Soreq NRC, Yavne (Israel)
2. NREL, Golden, CO (United States)

We report on a novel semiconductor photoelectrode structure that exhibits nearly ideal dependence of the photocurrent-voltage characteristics on the concentration of a nonadsorbed, outer-sphere redox acceptor. The structure consists of a thin (30-50 {Angstrom}) epilayer of GaInP{sub 2} grown on a thick (5000 {Angstrom}) p-GaAs epilayer. The thin GaInP{sub 2} layer produces nearly perfect passivation of the GaAs surface, while at the same time permitting efficient electron transfer via field-assisted tunneling and/or thermionic emission. The structure ideal behavior is demonstrated also by the dependence of the photocurrent quantum yield on the GaInP{sub 2} barrier thickness, linear Mott-Schottky plots without hystersis to within 0.1 Volt of the flatband potential, and an acceptor concentration dependence of time-resolved photoluminescence measurements.

• OSTI ID: 370784
• Report Number(s): CONF-960376--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ELECTRON TRANSFER
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
GALLIUM PHOSPHIDES
INDIUM PHOSPHIDES
PASSIVATION
PHOTOCURRENTS
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
THERMIONIC EMISSION