Characteristics of GaAs solar cells on Ge substrate with a preliminary grown thin layer of AlGaAs

Abstract

Characteristics of GaAs solar cell on Ge substrate with a new buffer layer structure is reported. The buffer layer structure, which consisted of a preliminarily grown thin layer of A1 x Ga 1− x As and a 1 μm thick GaAs layer, was designed to obtain a high quality GaAs layer on Ge substrate by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Performance of a GaAs solar cell fabricated on Ge substrate with the buffer layer structure was compared with that fabricated on Ge substrate with a conventional GaAs buffer layer and also that fabricated on GaAs substrate. A conversion efficiency of 23.18% (AM1.5G) was successfully obtained for the cell fabricated on Ge substrate with the new buffer layer structure, while it was 20.92% for the cell fabricated on Ge substrate with the conventional GaAs buffer layer. Values of V oc and J sc, for the cell fabricated on Ge substrate with the new buffer layer structure were approximately comparable to those of a 25.39% efficiency GaAs solar cell fabricated on GaAs substrate.