Dong Jianrong

Growth and transport properties of InAs thin films on GaAs

High-quality InAs epitaxial layers have been grown on (1 0 0) oriented semi-insulating GaAs substrates by MBE. The transport properties of largely lattice mismatched InAs/GaAs heterojunctions have been investigated by Hall effect measurements down to 10 K. In spite of a high dislocation density at the heterointerface, very high electron mobilities are obtained in the InAs thin films. By doping Si into the layer far from the InAs/GaAs interface, we found that the doped samples have higher electron mobility than that of the undoped samples with the same thickness. The mobility demonstrates a pronounced minimum around 300 K for the undoped sample. But for Si-doped samples, no pronounced minimum has been found. Such abnormal behaviours are explained by the parallel conduction from the quasi-bulk carriers and interface carriers. These high-mobility InAs thin films are found to be suitable materials for making Hall elements

Influence of GaInP ordering on the performance of GaInP solar cells

CuPt-type ordering with undesirable properties always occurs in GaInP at growth conditions that are very close to those leading to the highest quality material in metal organic chemical vapor deposition. In this work, highly disordered GaInP with high crystalline quality was obtained by optimizing growth conditions. Room temperature and low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of AlGaInP/GaInP/AlGaInP double heterostructures (DHs) reveal that the band edge emission intensity is enhanced by optimizing growth temperature, V/III ratio, and reactor pressure at the expense of low energy peak originating from spatially indirect recombination due to the ordering-related defects. The DH sample with less ordering-related defects demonstrates a longer effective minority carrier lifetime, consequently, the GaInP solar cell shows a significant improvement in the performance.

InGaAsP/InGaAs tandem photovoltaic devices for four-junction solar cells*

Lattice-matched InGaAs(P) photovoltaic devices were grown on InP substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. InGaAsP/InGaAs (1.07/0.74 eV) dual-junction (DJ) solar cells were fabricated and characterized by quantum efficiency and I–V measurements. The open circuit voltage, short circuit current density, fill factor, and efficiency of InGaAsP/InGaAs DJ solar cell are 0.977 V, 10.2 mA/cm2, 80.8%, and 8.94%, respectively, under one sun illumination of the AM 1.5D spectrum. For the InGaAsP/InGaAs DJ solar cell, with increasing concentration, the conversion efficiency first increases steadily and reaches 13% around 280 suns, and finally decreases due to the drop in fill factor at higher concentration ratios. These experimental results demonstrate the promising prospect of GaInP/GaAs/InGaAsP/InGaAs four-junction solar cells.

0.6-eV bandgap In0.69Ga0.31As thermophotovoltaic devices with compositionally undulating step-graded InAsyP1−ybuffers

Single-junction, lattice-mismatched In0.69Ga0.31As thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices each with abandgap of 0.6 eV are grown on InP substrate by metal—organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). Compositionally undulating step-graded InAsyP1−y buffer layers with a lattice mismatch of ~1.2% are used to mitigate the effect of lattice mismatch between the device layers and the InP substrate. With an optimized buffer thickness, the In0.69Ga0.31As active layers grown on the buffer display a high crystal quality with no measurable tetragonal distortion. High-performance single-junction devices are demonstrated, with an open-circuit voltage of 0.215 V and a photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 6.9% at a short-circuit current density of 47.6 mA/cm2, which are measured underthe standard solar simulator of air mass 1.5-global (AM 1.5 G).

Leakage of photocurrent: an alternative view on I–V curves of solar cells

An alternative way is proposed to interpret I–V characteristics of GaInP single-junction solar cells by position-dependent leakage of photocurrent. With this approach, the I–V curves of solar cells under non-uniform illumination are well analyzed. The effective spreading resistance is also extracted to understand the dynamic behavior of between the open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current points. The conditions under which the one-diode model will fail are addressed in detail. These analyses are also applicable for a characterization of the I–V curves with lateral voltage distribution under uniform illumination.