Hau Vei Han

Large-area, uniform white light LED source on a flexible substrate.

This study demonstrates the flexible white LED structure with high lumen efficiency and uniform optical performance for neutral white and warm white CCT. Flip-chip LEDs were attached on a polyimide substrate with copper strips as electrical and thermal conduction paths. Yellow phosphors are mixed with polydimenthysiloxane (PDMS) to provide mechanical support and flexibility. The light efficiency of this device can reach 120 lm/W and 85% of light output uniformity of the emission area can be achieved. Moreover, the optical simulation is employed to evaluate various designs of this flexible film in order to obtain uniform output. Both the pitch between the individual devices and the thickness of the phosphor film are calculated for optimization purpose. This flexible white LED with high lumen efficiency and good reliability is suitable for the large area fixture in the general lighting applications.

Wide-Range Correlated Color Temperature Light Generation From Resonant Cavity Hybrid Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes

This study presents extremely uniform colloidal quantum dot white light-emitting diodes (QD-WLEDs) that demonstrate a high color rendering index (CRI) and correlated color temperatures (CCTs) ranging from 2500 to 4500 K. Experimental results indicate that the structure of the distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) containing a stopband in the UV region enhances the intensity output of both monochromatic QD-LEDs and QD-WLEDs by reflecting the unconverted UV light back onto the package to excite the QDs further. Furthermore, the angular CCT uniformity of the QD-WLEDs also improved considerably because of the dependence of the DBR structure on the incident angle. The angular CCT deviation in the range of -70° to 70° decreased to 39 K and the CRI of the WLED is higher than 90. The high-CRI and uniform angular CCT QD-WLED containing the DBR demonstrates potential applicability as the lighting source of next-generation display devices and solid-state lighting.

Performance enhancement of GaN-based flip- chip ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with a RPD AlN nucleation layer on patterned sapphire substrate

In this work, flip-chip ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (FCUV- LEDs) on patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) at 375 nm were grown by an atmospheric pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition (AP- MOCVD). A specialized reactive plasma deposited (RPD) AlN nucleation layer was utilized on the PSS to enhance the quality of the epitaxial layer. By using high-resolution X-ray diffraction, the full-width at half-maximum of the rocking curve shows that the FCUV-LEDs with RPD AlN nucleation layer had better crystalline quality when compared to conventional GaN nucleation samples. From the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image, it can be observed that the tip and incline portion of the pattern was smooth using the RPD AlN nucleation layer. The threading dislocation densities (TDDs) are reduced from 7 × 10 7 cm −2 to 2.5 × 10 7 cm −2 at the interface between the u-GaN layers for conventional and AlN PSS devices, respectively. As a result, a much higher light output power was achieved. The improvement of light output power at an injection current of 20 mA was enhanced by 30%. Further photoluminescence measurement and numerical simulation confirm such increase of output power can be attributed to the improvement of material quality and light extraction.

Enhance current density and light trapping effect in a-Si thin film solar cells by flexible textured PDMS film

The light trapping effect of a textured polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film on the suppression of surface reflection in a-Si:H solar cell is investigated. The angular dependence of scattered light from this PDMS film was measured and a symmetric scattering intensity peak was found at +/- 20°. The enhancement of power conversion efficiency in the a-Si:H solar cell with textured PDMS film can reach 16.37% compared to the a-Si:H solar cells without textured PDMS film. This improvement is mainly attributed to the enhanced efficiencies of light trapping and scattering. Such a design concept and fabrication process can be widely adapted to a variety of thin film solar cells.

Enhanced light harvesting of nitride-based nanopillars covered with ZnO using indium–tin oxide nanowhiskers

Nitride-based nanopillars were successfully fabricated by nanoimprint lithography. A nanowhisker of indium?tin oxide (ITO) deposited by on oblique evaporation method was investigated in nitride-based nanopillars and thin ZnO layers grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD). From the results of field-emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurement, it was found that ITO whiskers grew on nitride-based nanopillars covered with ZnO. Moreover, from the results of UV?visible spectrophotometry and bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurements, it was found that this hybrid structure of ITO nanowhiskers above a ZnO medium enhanced the broadband and angle-independent antireflection in the range between 380 and 600 nm. We used the hybrid design of the ITO/ZnO structure to achieve the lowest reflectance value between 3.8 and 10.9% in a quantum well absorption range.

Improve GaAs Solar Cells Efficiency by Using High-transmittance Textured PDMS Film

We demonstrate the GaAs solar cells which utilize the high-transmittance textured polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film can outstanding increase the short circuit current density and power conversion efficiency of solar cells. The transmittance of PDMS film is exceeded 90%, which can pass through almost all the light of GaAs Solar cells can be absorbed. We used a special imprint technology to let the PDMS film possess a highly textured surface. Then we measured the characteristics of textured PDMS film and found out that it has a very excellent Haze performance. The effect of flexible textured PDMS film on the suppression of surface reflection in GaAs solar cells is also investigated. The presented technology provides an inexpensive surface anti-reflection process, which can potentially replace typically complex anti-reflection coating (ARC) layer. The GaAs solar cells with textured PDMS layer can effectively enhance the short-circuit current density from 22.91 to 26.54 mA/cm2 and the power conversion efficiency from 18.28 to 21.43 %, corresponding to a 17 % enhancement compared to the one without textured PDMS. The open-circuit voltage (Voc) and the fill-factor (FF) of GaAs solar cells exhibit negligible change, because the textured PDMS film was pasted up on the surface of GaAs solar cells and did not interfere with the diode operation. At the same time, we observed through the EQE measurement that the textured PDMS film not only proved wonderful light scattering effect but also generated more electron-hole pairs in all absorption spectrum range. Finally, through this simple PDMS process, we believe this technology shall be a great candidate for next generation of highly efficient and low-cost photovoltaic devices.

Towards High-Efficiency Triple-Junction Solar Cells with Bio-Inspired Nanostructures

Triple-junction solar cells offer extremely high power conversion efficiency with minimal semiconductor material usage, and hence are promising for large-scale electricity generation. To fully exploit the broad absorption range, antireflective schemes based on biomimetic nanostructures become very appealing due to sub-wavelength scale features that can collectively function as a graded refractive index (GRIN) medium to photons. The structures are generally fabricated with a single-type dielectric material which guarantees both optical design robustness and mechanical durability under concentrated illumination. However, surface recombination and current matching issues arising from patterning still challenge the realization of biomimetic nanostructures on a few micrometer thick epitaxial layers for MJSCs. In this presentation, bio-inspired antireflective structures based on silicon nitride (SiNx) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) materials are demonstrated on monolithically grown Ga0.5In0.5P/In0.01Ga0.99As/Ge triple-junction solar cells. The nano-fabrication employs scalable polystyrene nanosphere lithography, followed by inductively-coupled-plasma reactive-ion-etching (ICP-RIE). We show that the fabricated devices exhibit omni-directional enhancement of photocurrent and power conversion efficiency, offering a viable solution to concentrated illumination with large angles of incidence. Moreover, a comprehensive design scheme is also presented to tailor the reflectance spectrum of sub-wavelength structures for maximum photocurrent output of tandem cells.

Efficiency enhancement of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well solar cells using CdS quantum dots and distributed Bragg reflectors

In recent year, InGaN-based alloy was also considered for photovoltaic devices owing to the distinctive material properties which are benefit photovoltaic performance. However, the Indium tin oxide (ITO) layer on top, which plays a role of transparent conductive oxide (TCO), can absorb UV photons without generating photocurrent. Also, the thin absorber layer in the device, which is consequent result after compromising with limited crystal quality, has caused insufficient light absorption. In this report, we propose an approach for solving these problems. A hybrid design of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) solar cells combined with colloidal CdS quantum dots (QDs) and back side distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) has been demonstrated. CdS QDs provide down-conversion effect at UV regime to avoid absorption of ITO. Moreover, CdS QDs also exhibit anti-reflective feature. DBRs at the back side have effectively reflected the light back into the absorber layer. CdS QDs enhance the external quantum efficiency (EQE) for light with wavelength shorter than 400 nm, while DBRs provide a broad band enhancement in EQE, especially within the region of 400 nm ~ 430 nm in wavelength. CdS QDs effectively achieved a power conversion efficiency enhancement as high as 7.2% compared to the device without assistance of CdS QDs. With the participation of DBRs, the power conversion efficiency enhancement has been further boosted to 14%. We believe that the hybrid design of InGaN/GaN MQWs solar cells with QDs and DBRs can be a method for high efficiency InGaN/GaN MQWs solar cells.

A highly efficient hybrid CdS-GaAs solar cell

A novel design of hybrid solar cell combining traditional GaAs-based solar cell with colloidal CdS quantum dots (QDs) is demonstrated. By applying CdS QDs on the surface of GaAs device, we can obtain an effective anti-reflection coating at long wavelength. Moreover, due to its strong absorption at ultraviolet range and efficient light emission at blue photon, CdS quantum dots can down-convert the high-energy UV photons into visible ones, which are more easily to be collected in GaAs solar cell. The short circuit current and power conversion efficiency of this new device increases by 21% and 18.9%, respectively, when we compare them to the uncoated GaAs solar cell. An increase of the surface photoconductivity was also detected due to UV presence, and the fill factor of the CdS QDs solar cell can be improved accordingly.