We report the enhancement of the minority carrier lifetime of GaInP with a lateral composition modulated (LCM) structure grown using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The structural and optical properties of the grown samples are studied by transmission electron microscopy and photoluminescence, which reveal the formation of vertically aligned bright and dark slabs corresponding to Ga-rich and In-rich GaInP regions, respectively, with good crystal quality. With the decrease of V/III ratio during LCM GaInP growth, it is seen that the band gap of LCM GaInP is reduced, while the PL intensity remains high and is comparable to that of bulk GaInP. We also investigate the minority carrier lifetime of LCM structures made with different flux ratios. It is found that the minority carrier lifetime of LCM GaInP is ∼37 times larger than that of bulk GaInP material, due to the spatial separation of electrons and holes by In-rich and Ga-rich regions of the LCM GaInP, respectively. We further demonstrate that the minority carrier lifetime of the grown LCM GaInP structures can easily be tuned by simply adjusting the V/III flux ratio during MBE growth, providing a simple yet powerful technique to tailor the electrical and optical properties at will. The exceptionally high carrier lifetime and the reduced band gap of LCM GaInP make them a highly attractive candidate for forming the top cell of multi-junction solar cells and can enhance their efficiency, and also make them suitable for other optoelectronics devices, such as photodetectors, where longer carrier lifetime is beneficial.

No abstract

We report the observation of room temperature photoluminescence (PL) emission from GaAs/GaInAs core-multiple-quantum-well (MQW) shell nanowires (NWs) surrounded by AlGaAs grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using a self-catalyzed technique. PL spectra of the sample show two PL peaks, originating from the GaAs core NWs and the GaInAs MQW shells. The PL peak from the shell structure red-shifts with increasing well width, and the peak position can be tuned by adjusting the width of the MQW shell. The GaAs/GaInAs core-MQW shell NW surrounded by AlGaAs also shows an enhanced PL intensity due to the improved carrier confinement owing to the presence of an AlGaAs clad layer. The inclined growth of the GaAs NWs produces a core-MQW shell structure having a different PL peak position than that of planar QWs. The PL emission by MQW shell and the ability to tune the PL peak position by varying the shell width make such core-shell NWs highly attractive for realizing next generation ultrasmall light sources and other optoelectronics devices.PACS81.07.Gf; 81.15.Hi; 78.55.Cr

GaAs tunnel diodes (TDs) embedded with an InAs quantum dot (QD) layer were grown and their performance was compared with that of TDs without a QD layer. The TDs embedded with a QD layer showed enhanced peak tunnel current density and lower differential resistivity at zero bias compared with the TDs without a QD layer. The samples were then annealed to mimic the overlayer growth process. It was found that the performance degradation after annealing was smaller for the QD-layer-embedded TDs. The improved characteristics of the QD-layer-embedded GaAs TDs make them advantageous for interconnecting unit cells in tandem solar cells.

Double-hetero structure lateral composition modulated (LCM) GaInP and sandwiched LCM GaInP having the same active layer thickness were grown and their optical properties were compared. Sandwiched LCM GaInP showed robust optical properties due to periodic potential nature of the LCM structure, and the periodicity was undistorted even for thickness far beyond the critical layer thickness. A thick LCM GaInP structure with undistorted potential that could preserve the properties of native LCM structure was possible by stacking thin LCM GaInP structures interspaced with strain compensating GaInP layers. The sandwiched structure could be beneficial in realizing the LCM structure embedded high efficiency solar cells.

We report the performance enhancement of a molecular beam epitaxy grown GaAs tunnel diode embedded with InAs quantum dots (QDs) for tandem solar cell application, and characterization of tunnel diodes embedded with InAs QDs grown with different growth parameters. Prior to the growth and fabrication of the tunnel diode, InAs QDs were grown under different growth durations and temperatures. The InAs QD samples grown in a temperature range from 480 to 520 °C for a duration of 32 s showed the highest areal fill fraction by InAs QDs. Tunnel diodes embedded with InAs QDs that were grown at various growth conditions were fabricated and characterized. We found that the tunnel diode embedded with InAs QD grown at 520 °C showed the highest peak tunnel current density among all the samples. The enhanced performance of the InAs QD embedded tunnel diode is attributed to the large areal fill fraction produced by the presence of large InAs QDs having high density, which are formed at sufficiently high growth temperature and long growth duration.

We report the fabrication of broadband antireflective silicon (Si) nanostructures fabricated using spin-coated silver (Ag) nanoparticles as an etch mask followed by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching process. This fabrication technique is a simple, fast, cost-effective, and high-throughput method, making it highly suitable for mass production. Prior to the fabrication of Si nanostructures, theoretical investigations were carried out using a rigorous coupled-wave analysis method in order to determine the effects of variations in the geometrical features of Si nanostructures to obtain antireflection over a broad wavelength range. The Ag ink ratio and ICP etching conditions, which can affect the distribution, distance between the adjacent nanostructures, and height of the resulting Si nanostructures, were carefully adjusted to determine the optimal experimental conditions for obtaining desirable Si nanostructures for practical applications. The Si nanostructures fabricated using the optimal experimental conditions showed a very low average reflectance of 8.3%, which is much lower than that of bulk Si (36.8%), as well as a very low reflectance for a wide range of incident angles and different polarizations over a broad wavelength range of 300 to 1,100 nm. These results indicate that the fabrication technique is highly beneficial to produce antireflective structures for Si-based device applications requiring low light reflection.

No abstract