Molecular beam epitaxial growth of CdTe and related II-VI materials on Si for the fabrication of infrared detectors and solar cells

Sivalingam Sivananthan; Michael Carmody; Chollada Gilmore; James Garland

doi:10.1117/12.888643

18 February 2011 Molecular beam epitaxial growth of CdTe and related II-VI materials on Si for the fabrication of infrared detectors and solar cells

Sivalingam Sivananthan, Michael Carmody, Chollada Gilmore, James Garland

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7995, Seventh International Conference on Thin Film Physics and Applications; 79951V (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.888643
Event: Seventh International Conference on Thin Film Physics and Applications, 2010, Shanghai, China

Abstract

CdTe/Si substrates with etch-pit densities ~5 x 10⁴ - 2 x10⁵ cm^-2 and x-ray diffraction full-width at half-maximum <60 arcsec over >60% of a 3" substrate and ≤85 arcsec over the entire area are now available. Midwave and shortwave HgCdTe infrared detectors fabricated on these substrates have device characteristics as good as those of detectors fabricated on lattice-matched CdZnTe substrates. Also, minority carrier lifetimes of 100s of nanoseconds are measured for CdTe/Si and CdZnTe/Si, and both can be p-doped 10¹⁷ cm^-3 and n-doped >10²⁰ cm^-3. Calculations suggest that the use of these materials should yield multijunction solar cells with efficiencies higher than those of the corresponding III-V multijunction cells at much lower cost, using rugged, large-area, inexpensive active Si substrates. The first CdZnTe/Si single-junction solar cells fabricated by EPIR displayed an electronic-charge times open-circuit voltage, qV_oc, within ~0.45 eV of the CdZnTe bandgap E_g, as good a result as that for the best III-V alloy single-junction cells, and confirmed the suitability of single-crystal CdZnTe/Si for the manufacture of high-efficiency solar cells.

Citation Download Citation

Sivalingam Sivananthan, Michael Carmody, Chollada Gilmore, and James Garland "Molecular beam epitaxial growth of CdTe and related II-VI materials on Si for the fabrication of infrared detectors and solar cells", Proc. SPIE 7995, Seventh International Conference on Thin Film Physics and Applications, 79951V (18 February 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.888643

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