Title:
Growth and characterization of high-quality, thick InGaN epilayers for high-efficiency, low-cost solar cells
Growth and characterization of high-quality, thick InGaN epilayers for high-efficiency, low-cost solar cells
Author(s)
Pantzas, Konstantinos
Advisor(s)
Ougazzaden, Abdallah
Editor(s)
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Abstract
In the global context of increasing oil prices and public concern regarding the safety
of nuclear plants, renewable forms of energy are called upon to play a major role in
tomorrow’s energy market. Among the various forms of renewable energies, solar
power holds the greatest potential for development.
Despite the constant improvement of photovoltaic technologies over the past few
year, these technologies are rapidly approaching the theoretic performance limits.
New ideas and materials are required to overcome this bottleneck and to take full
advantage of solar power.
With a band-gap energy spanning the full solar spectrum, and an absorption
coefficient ten times higher than competing materials, indium gallium nitride alloys
are amongst the most promising solar-cell materials. Nevertheless, fundamental issues
related to the fabrication and doping of InGaN alloys still hamper the development of
InGaN-based photovoltaics.
In the present thesis, conducted within the framework of the ANR project
NewPVonGlass, the growth of InGaN alloys suitable for photovoltaics using
metalorganic vapor-phase epi- taxy (MOVPE) is studied. A combination of several
cutting-edge characterization tools is employed to determine the fundamental
mechanism that govern the growth of InGaN. Based on the results of this study, an
innovative procedure that allows the growth of hig-quality InGaN epitaxial layers is
demonstrated and is used for the fabrication of InGaN-based solar cells.
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Date Issued
2015-11-05
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Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Dissertation