Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Schulte, Kevin L.; Simon, John; Mangum, John; Packard, Corinne E.; Gorman, Brian P.; Jain, Nikhil; Ptak, Aaron J.

doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659

Title: Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Abstract

We demonstrate the growth of homojunction GaInP solar cells by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy for the first time. Simple unpassivated n-on-p structures grown in an inverted configuration with gold back reflectors were analyzed. Short wavelength performance varied strongly with emitter thickness, since collection in the emitter was limited by the lack of surface passivation. Collection in the base increased strongly with decreasing doping density, in the range 1 x 10¹⁶ - 5 x 10¹⁷ cm^-3. Optical modeling indicated that, in our best device, doped ~1 x 10¹⁶ cm^-3, almost 94% of photons that passed through the emitter were collected. Modeling also indicated that the majority of collection occurs in the depletion region with this design, suggesting that nonradiative recombination there might limit device performance. In agreement with this observation, the experimental dark J-V curve exhibited an ideality factor near n = 2. Thus, limitation of deep level carrier traps in the material is a path to improved performance. Preliminary experiments indicate that a reduced V/III ratio, which potentially affects the density of these presumed traps, improves cell performance. With reduced V/III ratio, we demonstrate a ~13% efficient GaInP cell measured under the 1-sun AM1.5G spectrum. In conclusion, this cellmore »« less

Authors:

Schulte, Kevin L. ^[1]; Simon, John ^[1]; Mangum, John ^[2]; Packard, Corinne E. ^[2]; Gorman, Brian P. ^[2]; Jain, Nikhil ^[1]; Ptak, Aaron J. ^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

Publication Date:: Sun Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2017

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

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office

OSTI Identifier:: 1373082

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5J00-67972
Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381

Publisher:: IEEE

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 14 SOLAR ENERGY; 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; III-V multijunction solar cells; III-V semiconductor materials; deposition and characterization of thin film photovoltaic (PV) absorbers; semiconductor growth

Citation Formats


                    Schulte, Kevin L., Simon, John, Mangum, John, Packard, Corinne E., Gorman, Brian P., Jain, Nikhil, and Ptak, Aaron J. Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy.  United States: N. p., 2017. 
Web.  doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659.

Copy to clipboard


                    Schulte, Kevin L., Simon, John, Mangum, John, Packard, Corinne E., Gorman, Brian P., Jain, Nikhil, & Ptak, Aaron J. Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659

Copy to clipboard


                    Schulte, Kevin L., Simon, John, Mangum, John, Packard, Corinne E., Gorman, Brian P., Jain, Nikhil, and Ptak, Aaron J. Sun .  
"Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1373082.

Copy to clipboard


                    
@article{osti_1373082,

  title        = {Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy},

  author       = {Schulte, Kevin L. and Simon, John and Mangum, John and Packard, Corinne E. and Gorman, Brian P. and Jain, Nikhil and Ptak, Aaron J.},

  abstractNote = {We demonstrate the growth of homojunction GaInP solar cells by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy for the first time. Simple unpassivated n-on-p structures grown in an inverted configuration with gold back reflectors were analyzed. Short wavelength performance varied strongly with emitter thickness, since collection in the emitter was limited by the lack of surface passivation. Collection in the base increased strongly with decreasing doping density, in the range 1 x 1016 - 5 x 1017 cm-3. Optical modeling indicated that, in our best device, doped ~1 x 1016 cm-3, almost 94% of photons that passed through the emitter were collected. Modeling also indicated that the majority of collection occurs in the depletion region with this design, suggesting that nonradiative recombination there might limit device performance. In agreement with this observation, the experimental dark J-V curve exhibited an ideality factor near n = 2. Thus, limitation of deep level carrier traps in the material is a path to improved performance. Preliminary experiments indicate that a reduced V/III ratio, which potentially affects the density of these presumed traps, improves cell performance. With reduced V/III ratio, we demonstrate a ~13% efficient GaInP cell measured under the 1-sun AM1.5G spectrum. In conclusion, this cell had an antireflective coating, but no front surface passivation.},

  doi          = {10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659},

  journal      = {IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics},

  number       = 4,

  volume       = 7,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Sun Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2017},

  month        = {Sun Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2017}

}

Copy to clipboard

Journal Article:

Free Publicly Available Full Text

Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Publisher's Version of Record

https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2691659

Other availability

Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 19 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Export Metadata

Save to My Library

Works referencing / citing this record:

High growth rate hydride vapor phase epitaxy at low temperature through use of uncracked hydrides
journal, January 2018

Schulte, Kevin L.; Braun, Anna; Simon, John
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 112, Issue 4
DOI: 10.1063/1.5013136

Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections:

Improvement of Short-Circuit Current Density in GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Dynamic Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Journal Article Schulte, Kevin L. ; Simon, John D. ; Young, Matthew R. ; ... - IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

We demonstrate GaInP solar cells grown by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy with improved efficiency through elimination of nonradiative recombination centers. We redesigned our reactor to eliminate unintentional impurities, which led to a reduction of nearly 30^x in dark current. This improvement led to a significantly improved open-circuit voltage of 1.41 V and a band gap-voltage offset of 0.47 V in a device with a rear reflector, achieved without front surface passivation. We demonstrate that the limiting factor toward achieving higher efficiency is control over the emitter thickness. Recombination is high in the unpassivated emitter, but losses can be minimizedmore »« less
Cited by 5
https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2870938

Full Text Available
Analysis of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Conference Schulte, Kevin L ; Simon, John D ; Young, David L ; ...

We analyzed the performance of a simple n-on-p GaInP solar cell grown without surface passivation but with a back reflector by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy (DHYPE). We employed a thin emitter because the lack of surface passivation limited collection in that layer. We obtained a maximum internal quantum efficiency of nearly 95% by using 1 x 10^16 cm^-3 base doping. This device exhibited an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.27 V, short circuit current (JSC) of 12.6 mA/cm^2 , a fill factor (FF) of 79.3%, and 12.8% efficiency. Limits on cell performance predominantly come from VOC and FF. Amore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366776
Investigation of Ga₂O₃ as a new transparent conductive oxide for photovoltaics applications

Technical Report Grassman, Tyler J. ; Ringel, Steven A. ; Kasher, Tal

This small innovation project intended to leverage recent activity and advances in ultrawide-bandgap oxide power electronics toward the investigation of Ga₂O₃ as a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) for use in photovoltaics (PV). Ga₂O₃’s theoretical advantage over incumbent TCOs is its very large bandgap of 4.8 eV, ensuring optical transparency of photons with λ ≥ 260 nm, effectively the full terrestrial solar spectrum. At the time of proposal writing, literature on Ga₂O₃ as a TCO/optical material was relatively sparse — what little existed was focused on for UV sensors and/or emitters, with none related to PV. As such, this project wasmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.2172/1876826

Full Text Available
AlInP-passivated III–V solar cells grown by dynamic hydride vapor-phase epitaxy

Journal Article Boyer, Jacob T. ; Schulte, Kevin L. ; Young, Matthew R. ; ... - Progress in Photovoltaics

Abstract We report the development of AlInP‐passivated solar cells grown by dynamic hydride vapor‐phase epitaxy (D‐HVPE) with AM1.5G efficiencies of 26.0% for single‐junction (1J) GaAs cells and 28.0% for GaInP/GaAs (2J) tandems. We compare the device performance of solar cells passivated with AlInP versus control cells passivated with GaInP, which has already enabled near‐unity carrier collection in GaAs solar cells. 1J devices passivated with either AlInP or GaInP have an identical open‐circuit voltage ( V _OC ) of 1.06 V and long‐wavelength current collection near 95%, indicating that both window materials provide a similar degree of passivation. Adding AlInPmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.3629

Full Text Available
Inverted metamorphic GaInAs solar cell grown by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy

Journal Article Schulte, Kevin L. ; Diercks, David R. ; Guthrey, Harvey L. ; ... - Applied Physics Letters

We present an inverted metamorphic rear heterojunction ~1.0 eV GaInAs solar cell deposited by dynamic hydride vapor phase epitaxy (D-HVPE) with high growth rate. This device uses a Ga_1-xIn_xP compositionally graded buffer (CGB) to bridge the lattice constant gap between the GaAs substrate and the Ga0.71In0.29As emitter layer. High-resolution x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirm that the Ga_0.71In_0.29As emitter is grown lattice-matched to the in-plane lattice constant of the CGB with minimal generation of defects at the GaInAs/GaInP interface. The device contains a threading dislocation density of 2.3 × 10⁶ cm^-2, a level that enables high-performance minority carrier devicesmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0061350

Full Text Available

Similar Records

Title: Development of GaInP Solar Cells Grown by Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy

Abstract

Citation Formats

High growth rate hydride vapor phase epitaxy at low temperature through use of uncracked hydrides journal, January 2018

High growth rate hydride vapor phase epitaxy at low temperature through use of uncracked hydrides
journal, January 2018