The membrane based solar paper in APL is out in which I was happy to contribute a bit: “Pixelated GaSb solar cells on silicon by membrane bonding”
We demonstrate thin-film GaSb solar cells which are isolated from a GaSb substrate and transferred to a Si substrate. We epitaxially grow ∼3.3 μm thick GaSb P on N diode structures on a GaSb substrate. Upon patterning in 2D arrays of pixels, the GaSb films are released via epitaxial lift-off and they are transferred to Si substrates. Encapsulation of each pixel preserves the structural integrity of the GaSb film during lift-off. Using this technique, we consistently transfer ∼4 × 4 mm2 array of pixelated GaSb membranes to a Si substrate with a ∼ 80%–100% yield. The area of individual pixels ranges from ∼90 × 90 μm2 to ∼340 × 340 μm2. Further processing to fabricate photovoltaic devices is performed after the transfer. GaSb solar cells with lateral sizes of ∼340 × 340 μm2 under illumination exhibit efficiencies of ∼3%, which compares favorably with extracted values for large-area (i.e., 5 × 5 mm2) homoepitaxial GaSb solar cells on GaSb substrates.
Authors: Vijay S. Mangu, Emma J. Renteria, Sadhvikas J. Addamane, Ahmad Mansoori, Adrian Armendáriz, Christoph F. Deneke, Sukarno O. Ferreira, Marziyeh Zamiri, Ganesh Balakrishnan, and Francesca Cavallo
Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 123502 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5037800
