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Quasi-single Crystal Semiconductors on Glass Substrates Through Biaxially Oriented Buffer Layers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Toh-Ming Lu ,
Huafang Li ,
Churamani Gaire ,
Nicholas LiCausi ,
Tzu Liang Chan ,
Ishwara Bhat ,
Shengbai Zhang  and
Gwo Ching Wang
Toh-Ming Lu
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, Troy, New York, United States
Huafang Li
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, Troy, New York, United States
Churamani Gaire
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, Troy, New York, United States
Nicholas LiCausi
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, ECSE, Troy, New York, United States
Tzu Liang Chan
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, Troy, New York, United States
Ishwara Bhat
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, ECSE, Troy, New York, United States
Shengbai Zhang
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, Troy, New York, United States
Gwo Ching Wang
Affiliation:
[email protected], Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Physics, 1C25 Science Center, 110 8th Street, Troy, New York, 12180, United States, 518 276 8387, 518 276 6680
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Abstract

High efficiency photovoltaic devices are normally fabricated on single crystalline substrates. These single crystalline substrates are expensive and volume production for widespread usage has not been realistic. To date, large volume production of solar cells is on less expensive non-crystalline substrates such as glass. Typically the films grown on glass are polycrystalline with less than ideal efficiency. It was proposed that a dramatic gain in the efficiency may be achieved if one uses a biaxially oriented buffer layer on glass to grow biaxial semiconductor films to fabricate solar devices compared to that of films grown directly on glass. Biaxial films are not exactly single crystal but have strongly preferred crystallographic orientations in both the out-of-plane and in-plane directions. Typically the misorientation between grains can be small (within a few degrees) and may possess low carrier recombination rate. In this paper we shall discuss growth techniques that would allow one to produce biaxial buffer layers on glass. A specific strategy using an atomic shadowing mechanism in an oblique angle deposition configuration that allows one to grow biaxial buffer layers such as CaF2 on glass substrate will be discussed in detail. Results of heteroepitaxy of semiconductor materials such as CdTe and Ge on these biaxial buffer/glass substrates characterized by x-ray pole figure, reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) pole figure and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) will be presented.

Keywords

texturenanostructuresemiconducting
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1268: Symposium EE – Defects in Inorganic Photovoltaic Materials , 2010 , 1268-EE03-06
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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