AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Thursday Sessions
       Session EM2-ThA

Invited Paper EM2-ThA5
High-Performance, Lattice-Mismatched GaInAs

Thursday, November 3, 2005, 3:20 pm, Room 310

Session: Dilute Nitrides and Small Bandgap Semiconductors
Presenter: M.W. Wanlass, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
GaInAs is a pseudobinary III-V compound semiconductor that has a direct bandgap, and full miscibility, over its entire composition range. The room-temperature bandgap varies significantly, from 0.36 eV (InAs) to 1.42 eV (GaAs), between the binary endpoints. The above characteristics make GainAs particularly well suited to photovoltaic (PV) energy converter applications that require infrared-responsive components. Arbitrary bandgaps within the available range are achieved by considering epitaxial, lattice-mismatched (LMM) heterostructures grown on commercially available crystalline substrates (e.g., Ge, GaAs, and InP). We discuss structural approaches involving compositional grading that yield LMM materials with excellent minority-carrier parameters. A variety of characterization techniques are used to elucidate the microstructural and electronic properties. Specific PV device applications and results are also presented.