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Carrier-Transport Study of Gallium Arsenide Hillock Defects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2019

Chuanxiao Xiao ,
Chun-Sheng Jiang ,
Jun Liu ,
Andrew Norman ,
John Moseley ,
Kevin Schulte ,
Aaron J. Ptak ,
Brian Gorman ,
Mowafak Al-Jassim  and
Nancy M. Haegel
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Chuanxiao Xiao*
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Chun-Sheng Jiang
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Jun Liu
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Andrew Norman
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
John Moseley
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Kevin Schulte
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Aaron J. Ptak
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Brian Gorman
Affiliation:
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Mowafak Al-Jassim
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Nancy M. Haegel
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Helio Moutinho
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
*
*Author for correspondence: Chuanxiao Xiao, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Single-crystalline gallium arsenide (GaAs) grown by various techniques can exhibit hillock defects on the surface when sub-optimal growth conditions are employed. The defects act as nonradiative recombination centers and limit solar cell performance. In this paper, we applied near-field transport imaging to study hillock defects in a GaAs thin film. On the same defects, we also performed near-field cathodoluminescence, standard cathodoluminescence, electron-backscattered diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry. We found that the luminescence intensity around the hillock area is two orders of magnitude lower than on the area without hillock defects in the millimeter region, and the excess carrier diffusion length is degraded by at least a factor of five with significant local variation. The optical and transport properties are affected over a significantly larger region than the observed topography and crystallographic and chemical compositions associated with the defect.

Keywords

carrier transportdefectgallium arsenidenear fieldsolar cell
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 25 , Issue 5 , October 2019 , pp. 1160 - 1166
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2019 

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