Growth and characterization of high-quality, thick InGaN epilayers for high-efficiency, low-cost solar cells

InGaN;solar cells;MOCVE;HAADF-STEM

Pantzas, Konstantinos ; Ougazzaden, Abdallah Electrical and Computer Engineering Yoder, P. Douglas Cherkaoui, Mohammed Dupuis, Russell D. Citrin, David S. ; Ougazzaden, Abdallah

University:Georgia Institute of Technology

Department:Electrical and Computer Engineering

关键词: InGaN;    solar cells;    MOCVE;    HAADF-STEM;   

Others  :  https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/1853/54380/1/PANTZAS-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf

美国|英语

来源: SMARTech Repository

【 摘 要 】

In the global context of increasing oil prices and public concern regarding the safetyof nuclear plants, renewable forms of energy are called upon to play a major role intomorrow’s energy market. Among the various forms of renewable energies, solarpower holds the greatest potential for development. Despite the constant improvement of photovoltaic technologies over the past fewyear, these technologies are rapidly approaching the theoretic performance limits.New ideas and materials are required to overcome this bottleneck and to take fulladvantage of solar power. With a band-gap energy spanning the full solar spectrum, and an absorptioncoefficient ten times higher than competing materials, indium gallium nitride alloysare amongst the most promising solar-cell materials. Nevertheless, fundamental issuesrelated to the fabrication and doping of InGaN alloys still hamper the development ofInGaN-based photovoltaics. In the present thesis, conducted within the framework of the ANR projectNewPVonGlass, the growth of InGaN alloys suitable for photovoltaics usingmetalorganic vapor-phase epi- taxy (MOVPE) is studied. A combination of severalcutting-edge characterization tools is employed to determine the fundamentalmechanism that govern the growth of InGaN. Based on the results of this study, aninnovative procedure that allows the growth of hig-quality InGaN epitaxial layers isdemonstrated and is used for the fabrication of InGaN-based solar cells.