Photovoltaic Response of InGaN/GaN Multiple-Quantum Well Solar Cells

S. Valdueza-Felip (1) , A. Mukhtarova (1) , Qing Pan (2) , Giovanni Altamura (1) , Louis Grenet (3) , C. Durand (1) , Catherine Bougerol (4) , David Peyrade (5) , F. Gonzalez-Posada (1) , Joël Eymery (1) , Eva Monroy (1)

1 NPSC - Nanophysique et Semiconducteurs
2 SP2M - UMR 9002 - Service de Physique des Matériaux et Microstructures
3 LITEN - Laboratoire d'Innovation pour les Technologies des Energies Nouvelles et les nanomatériaux
4 NEEL - NPSC - Nanophysique et Semiconducteurs
5 LTM - Laboratoire des technologies de la microélectronique

We report on the fabrication and photovoltaic characterization of In0.12Ga0.88N/GaN multi-quantum-well (MQW) solar cells grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy on (0001) sapphire substrates. Increasing the number of MQWs in the active region from 5 to 30 improves a factor of 10 the peak external quantum efficiency of the device at the price of a slight reduction and increase of the shunt and series resistance, respectively. Solar cells with 30 MQWs exhibit an external quantum efficiency of 38% at 380 nm, an open circuit voltage of 2.0 V, a short circuit current density of 0.23 mA/cm2 and a fill factor of 59% under 1 sun of AM1.5G-equivalent solar illumination. Solar cells with the grid spacing of the top p-contact varying from 100 to 200 µm present the same device performance in terms of spectral response and conversion efficiency.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

S. Valdueza-Felip, A. Mukhtarova, Qing Pan, Giovanni Altamura, Louis Grenet, et al.. Photovoltaic Response of InGaN/GaN Multiple-Quantum Well Solar Cells. Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 2013, 52, pp.08JH05. ⟨10.7567/JJAP.52.08JH05⟩. ⟨hal-00855967⟩