Highly tensile-strained Ge/InAlAs nanocomposites.

Self-assembled nanocomposites have been extensively investigated due to the novel properties that can emerge when multiple material phases are combined. Growth of epitaxial nanocomposites using lattice-mismatched constituents also enables strain-engineering, which can be used to further enhance material properties. Here, we report self-assembled growth of highly tensile-strained Ge/In0.52Al0.48As (InAlAs) nanocomposites by using spontaneous phase separation. Transmission electron microscopy shows a high density of single-crystalline germanium nanostructures coherently embedded in InAlAs without extended defects, and Raman spectroscopy reveals a 3.8% biaxial tensile strain in the germanium nanostructures. We also show that the strain in the germanium nanostructures can be tuned to 5.3% by altering the lattice constant of the matrix material, illustrating the versatility of epitaxial nanocomposites for strain engineering. Photoluminescence and electroluminescence results are then discussed to illustrate the potential for realizing devices based on this nanocomposite material.

Multilayer-Grown Ultrathin Nanostructured GaAs Solar Cells as a Cost-Competitive Materials Platform for III-V Photovoltaics.

Large-scale deployment of GaAs solar cells in terrestrial photovoltaics demands significant cost reduction for preparing device-quality epitaxial materials. Although multilayer epitaxial growth in conjunction with printing-based materials assemblies has been proposed as a promising route to achieve this goal, their practical implementation remains challenging owing to the degradation of materials properties and resulting nonuniform device performance between solar cells grown in different sequences. Here we report an alternative approach to circumvent these limitations and enable multilayer-grown GaAs solar cells with uniform photovoltaic performance. Ultrathin single-junction GaAs solar cells having a 300-nm-thick absorber (i.e., emitter and base) are epitaxially grown in triple-stack releasable multilayer assemblies by molecular beam epitaxy using beryllium as a p-type impurity. Microscale (∼500 × 500 µm2) GaAs solar cells fabricated from respective device layers exhibit excellent uniformity (<3% relative) of photovoltaic performance and contact properties owing to the suppressed diffusion of p-type dopant as well as substantially reduced time of epitaxial growth associated with ultrathin device configuration. Bifacial photon management employing hexagonally periodic TiO2 nanoposts and a vertical p-type metal contact serving as a metallic back-surface reflector together with specialized epitaxial design to minimize parasitic optical losses for efficient light trapping synergistically enable significantly enhanced photovoltaic performance of such ultrathin absorbers, where ∼17.2% solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency under simulated AM1.5G illumination is demonstrated from 420-nm-thick single-junction GaAs solar cells grown in triple-stack epitaxial assemblies.

High Performance Ultrathin GaAs Solar Cells Enabled with Heterogeneously Integrated Dielectric Periodic Nanostructures.

Due to their favorable materials properties including direct bandgap and high electron mobilities, epitaxially grown III-V compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) provide unmatched performance over silicon in solar energy harvesting. Nonetheless, their large-scale deployment in terrestrial photovoltaics remains challenging mainly due to the high cost of growing device quality epitaxial materials. In this regard, reducing the thickness of constituent active materials under appropriate light management schemes is a conceptually viable option to lower the cost of GaAs solar cells. Here, we present a type of high efficiency, ultrathin GaAs solar cell that incorporates bifacial photon management enabled by techniques of transfer printing to maximize the absorption and photovoltaic performance without compromising the optimized electronic configuration of planar devices. Nanoimprint lithography and dry etching of titanium dioxide (TiO2) deposited directly on the window layer of GaAs solar cells formed hexagonal arrays of nanoscale posts that serve as lossless photonic nanostructures for antireflection, diffraction, and light trapping in conjunction with a co-integrated rear-surface reflector. Systematic studies on optical and electrical properties and photovoltaic performance in experiments, as well as numerical modeling, quantitatively describe the optimal design rules for ultrathin, nanostructured GaAs solar cells and their integrated modules.