In-Situ MOVPE Smoothing of Acoustically Spalled GaAs for Substrate Reuse

High cost has long been a limiting factor to widespread III-V photovoltaic applications, with the material cost of the substrate being a significant portion of this cost. A potential to reduce this cost is reuse via acoustic spalling of a device from the GaAs surface, however this technique typicall...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Neumann, Anica N., Forcade, Gavin P., McMahon, William E., Coll, Pablo G., Bertoni, Mariana I., Steiner, Myles A., Warren, Emily L.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Costs
Epitaxial growth
Gallium arsenide
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaic systems
Rough surfaces
Smoothing methods
Substrates
Surface morphology
Surface roughness
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Summary:High cost has long been a limiting factor to widespread III-V photovoltaic applications, with the material cost of the substrate being a significant portion of this cost. A potential to reduce this cost is reuse via acoustic spalling of a device from the GaAs surface, however this technique typically leaves a rough surface, hindering subsequent device performance. This research investigates the potential of using metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth as a buffer layer to smooth the surface of acoustically spalled GaAs substrates for improved III-V photovoltaic cell yield and performance while retaining the maximum number of reuses of a substrate. Three potential smoothing layers have been explored: moderately doped C:GaAs, highly doped Se:GalnP, and lightly doped Se:GalnP. C:GaAs shows the most promise as a smoothing layer, while Se:GalnP tends to conform to the underlying morphology, potentially increasing roughness in some areas. Further work is ongoing to test the effectiveness of C:GaAs as a smoothing layer for inverted rear-heterojunction GaAs cells grown on both etched and unetched acoustically spalled substrates. Exploring the differences of an in-situ smoothing technique on etched and unetched substrates will inform the techno-economic analysis of acoustic spalling as an emerging low-cost method for III-V photovoltaic cell production.
ISSN:2995-1755
DOI:10.1109/PVSC57443.2024.10749471