Design and fabrication of nitride-based solar cells and integration for tandem cell

A practical III-nitride (III-N) photovoltaic (PV) application consists of transfer to a foreign substrate with enhanced functionality and/or integration with mature group IV or III-V based solar cell technologies. This requires a lift-off technique compatible with good quality III-N materials, with photovoltaic device fabrication and with subsequent bonding on a heterogeneous substrate. This thesis work demonstrates unprecedented InGaN-based solar cells on 2-inch h-BN/sapphire wafer and their transfer to glass with a backside reflector. III-N solar cells with various sizes and designs are processed and characterized on a full 2-inch wafer giving performances comparable to similar devices on sapphire. The subsequent crack-free transfer of the solar cells, enabled by Van der Waal bonded 2D layered h-BN, to a substrate with a backside reflector yields an increase in the short circuit current density of up to 20%. This demonstration of transferred InGaN-based solar cells on foreign substrates while increasing performance represents a major advance toward lightweight, low cost and high efficiency photovoltaic applications.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Ayari, Taha

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Ougazzaden, Abdallah
• Salvestrini, Jean-Paul

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Voss, Paul
• Adibi, Ali
• Sanders, Thomas

• InGaN solar cell
• Hybrid integration

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1853/61659

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.gatech.edu:1853/61659