Non-destructive, ultra-low resistance, thermally stable contacts for use on shallow junction InP solar cells

Conference · Sat May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993

OSTI ID:5978580

Weizer, V G; Fatemi, N S; Korenyi-both, A L

Contact formation to InP is plagued by violent metal-semiconductor intermixing that takes place during the contact sintering process. Because of this the InP solar cells cannot be sintered after contact deposition. This results in cell contact resistances that are orders of magnitude higher than those that could be achieved if sintering could be performed in a non-destructive manner. The authors report here on a truly unique contact system involving Au and Ge, which is easily fabricated, which exhibits extremely low values of contact resistivity, and in which there is virtually no metal-semiconductor interdiffusion, even after extended sintering. They present a description of this contact system and suggest possible mechanisms to explain the observed behavior.

• Research Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Cleveland, OH (United States). Lewis Research Center
• OSTI ID: 5978580
• Report Number(s): N-93-32201; NASA-TM--106228; E--7946; NAS--1.15:106228; CONF-930540--; CNN: RTOP 506-41-11
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140501* -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Photovoltaic Conversion
DIRECT ENERGY CONVERTERS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRIC CONTACTS
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
GERMANIUM
GOLD
INDIUM PHOSPHIDE SOLAR CELLS
METALS
PHOTOELECTRIC CELLS
PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SINTERING
SOLAR CELLS
SOLAR EQUIPMENT
STABILITY
SYNTHESIS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS