The reduction of antiphase boundary defects by the surfactant antimony and its application to the III-V multi-junction solar cells

Abstract

The CuPtB ordering and the antiphase boundaries (APBs) in GaInP2 epifilms were found to be diminished by the addition of the surfactant antimony (Sb) during the epitaxy. This is evidenced by the disappearance of the APBs related deep level peak in the Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectra, as well as the significantly increased lifetime of the minority carriers. The GaInP2/metamorphic (MM)-GaInAs/Ge multi-junction solar cells made by this method possess enhanced short circuit current density and show a narrower distribution of the open circuit voltage. We believe the use of surfactant Sb to control APBs during the growth of InGaP2 would be very useful for designing GaInP2-based devices, such as solar cells, laser diodes and light-emitting diodes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.