Effect of vicinal substrates on the growth and device performance of quantum dot solar cells

During quantum dot (QD) growth, substrate misorientation has been shown to play a role in the QD growth mechanism, changing their size, shape and density. Since various misorientation angles are used in production of solar cells, this work investigates QD enhanced GaAs p-i-n   solar cells grown using the Stranski–Krastanov (SK) growth method on substrates misoriented either 2° or 6° off the (100) in the [11¯0] direction. Results of this work show that 2° misoriented samples have a lower critical thickness for InAs QD formation as compared to the 6° misorientation: ∼1.7 monolayers (ML) versus∼1.8 ML, respectively. In addition, the 6° substrates showed a more uniform QD density and size distribution of QDs without significant QD coalescence. Photoluminescence of both substrate types shows that the QD ground state transitions are similar in wavelength. Results of the solar cells under one sun illumination show that QD cells grown on both 2° and 6° substrates have higher short-circuit current density than comparable cells without QD and maintain a high open-circuit voltage. The QD contributed short-circuit current density was normalized for QD size and density for both the 2° and 6° samples. Values of 360 A/cm2 per cm3 of InAs and 400 A/cm2 per cm3 of InAs were found for the 2° and 6° samples, respectively. For both substrate types, the reduced number of coalesced QDs promoted effective strain balancing, while the increased QD density lead to strong QD absorption.

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► Effects of substrate misorientation on growth of InAs quantum dots were investigated.
► QD grown on 6° substrate have higher density and do not coalesce (ripen).
► Critical InAs thickness for QD formation increased with misorientation.
► QD solar cells grown on 6° substrates have improved QD absorption.
► QD solar cells grown on 6° substrates have higher short circuit current.