Towards high efficiency and low cost nano-structured III-V solar cells
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- State-of-the-art III-V multijunction solar cells have achieved a record efficiency of 42%, the highest solar-electric conversion efficiency achieved by any technology. This has fueled great interest in the utility sector for large-scale deployment of solar cells. However, III-V solar cells have thus far proven too expensive for widespread terrestrial applications due to the combined cost of substrates, growth processes and materials. Here, we propose a novel III-V solar cell design based on the epitaxial growth of AlGaAs/GaAs on pre-patterned low-cost substrates to provide a path to cost-effective, large-scale deployment. This approach is based on our discovery that the surface kinetics of epitaxial growth by MBE is significantly altered when growing on three dimensional nanostructures instead of planar surfaces. Based on our exploratory results, we present the device design, electrical and optical simulation, and materials growth and device fabrication and characterization of core-shell nanostructured III-V solar cells. We use both bottom-up and top-down approaches to prepare the nanostructured templates in shape of nanowires and nanopyramids. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA) simulation show that the nanostructures have enhanced absorption and much wider incident acceptance angles than their planar counterpart, and outperform planar three-layer anti-reflective coatings. We first demonstrated high quality, single crystal III-V (GaAs and AlGaAs) polar material conformally epi grown on group IV (nanostructured Ge on Si substrate) nonpolar material via MBE and MOVPE (also known as MOCVD) with largely reduced anti-phase domains. We developed complete and mature routines to fabricate a working, single crystalline III-V solar cell on a nanostructured template. The I-V characterization of the fabricated nanostructured GaAs solar cell proves the concept and shows the great potential of making high-efficiency nano-structured III-V solar cells on low-cost substrates.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Gu Anjia |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Applied Physics |
| Primary advisor | Harris, J. S. (James Stewart), 1942- |
| Thesis advisor | Harris, J. S. (James Stewart), 1942- |
| Thesis advisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- |
| Thesis advisor | Fan, Shanhui, 1972- |
| Advisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- |
| Advisor | Fan, Shanhui, 1972- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Gu Anjia. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Applied Physics. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2011 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Gu Anjia
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