GaSb solar cells grown on GaAs via interfacial misfit arrays for use in the III-Sb multi-junction cell

• Published in: Applied physics letters 2017-12, Vol.111 (23)
• Main Authors: Nelson, George T., Juang, Bor-Chau, Slocum, Michael A., Bittner, Zachary S., Laghumavarapu, Ramesh B., Huffaker, Diana L., Hubbard, Seth M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: MATERIALS SCIENCE; SOLAR ENERGY
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118

We present that growth of GaSb with low threading dislocation density directly on GaAs may be possible with the strategic strain relaxation of interfacial misfit arrays. This creates an opportunity for a multijunction solar cell with access to a wide range of well-developed direct bandgap materials. Multijunction cells with a single layer of GaSb/GaAs interfacial misfit arrays could achieve higher efficiency than state-of-the-art inverted metamorphic multi-junction cells while forgoing the need for costly compositionally graded buffer layers. To develop this technology, GaSb single junction cells were grown via molecular beam epitaxy on both GaSb and GaAs substrates to compare homoepitaxial and heteroepitaxial GaSb device results. The GaSb-on-GaSb cell had an AM1.5g efficiency of 5.5% and a 44-sun AM1.5d efficiency of 8.9%. The GaSb-on-GaAs cell was 1.0% efficient under AM1.5g and 4.5% at 44 suns. The lower performance of the heteroepitaxial cell was due to low minority carrier Shockley-Read-Hall lifetimes and bulk shunting caused by defects related to the mismatched growth. A physics-based device simulator was used to create an inverted triple-junction GaInP/GaAs/GaSb model. Lastly, the model predicted that, with current GaSb-on-GaAs material quality, the not-current-matched, proof-of-concept cell would provide 0.5% absolute efficiency gain over a tandem GaInP/GaAs cell at 1 sun and 2.5% gain at 44 suns, indicating that the effectiveness of the GaSb junction was a function of concentration.