A study on the effects of amphoteric defect concentration on the characteristics parameters of In x Ga1−x N thin-film solar cells

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• 作者：Hossein Movla ; Mohammad Babazadeh ; Seyed Vahid Esmaeili
• 刊名：Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：July 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：122
• 期：7
• 全文大小：674 KB
• 刊物类别：Physics and Astronomy
• 刊物主题：Physics
  Condensed Matter
  Optical and Electronic Materials
  Nanotechnology
  Characterization and Evaluation Materials
  Surfaces and Interfaces and Thin Films
  Operating Procedures and Materials Treatment
  
• 出版者：Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
• ISSN：1432-0630
• 卷排序：122

文摘

Group III nitride semiconductors can partly cover the solar spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared spectra due to their ability to vary their band gap. These semiconductors have a substantial potential to develop ultra-high efficiency solar cells. However, defects have a profound effect on their power conversion efficiency. Since defects lead to dramatic changes in electronic and optoelectronic properties, controlling process to get acceptable defects density in solar cells is a noteworthy parameter in technological and device applications. This paper indicates a numerical simulation study to optimize the p–i–n InGaN homojunction solar cells by investigation of defect density in the whole cell structure. In this study, we assumed that the p-region and n-region thicknesses are 100 and 150 nm, respectively, and the optimized value of cell thickness is 1.3 μm. Similarly, we chose amphoteric defect density from 1015 to 1019 cm−3, and then the effects of defects density on characteristic parameters of cell have been studied. Based on our results, when the amphoteric defect concentration is below the 1015 cm−3, constant value for FF values in all layers was obtained. Therefore, cell efficiency remains the same in lower amphoteric defect density where all FF, V_OC and J_SC are constant. By increasing the amphoteric defect density from 1015 cm−3, the cell efficiency falls down dramatically from 20 to about 1 % at 1019 cm−3. In our simulated structure, the cell efficiency parameter decreases with increasing the defects density until it reaches the 1015 cm−3. Above this value, no change in the parameters was observed. Our results revealed that the high defect density range 1015–1019 cm−3 may be an equally significant cause of performance loss.