Impact of Electrical Contacting Scheme on Performance of InGaN/GaN Schottky Solar Cells
| dc.contributor.author | Jain, Aditya | en |
| dc.contributor.committeechair | Guido, Louis J. | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Plassmann, Paul E. | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Lu, Guo Quan | en |
| dc.contributor.department | Electrical and Computer Engineering | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-09-19T08:01:06Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2014-09-19T08:01:06Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2014-09-18 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Realization of low-resistance electrical contacts on both sides of a solar cell is essential for obtaining the best possible performance. A key component of a solar cell is a metal contact on the illuminated side of the cell which should efficiently collect carriers. These contacts can be formed using an opaque metal grid/finger pattern. The metal electrode may be used alone or in combination with a broad-area transparent conductive film. This work aims at investigating the impact of the electrical contacting scheme employed in InGaN/GaN Schottky barrier solar cells on their performance. InGaN is a III-V compound semiconductor and has a tunable direct band-gap (0.7 eV to 3.4 eV) which spans most of the solar spectrum; this fact, along with other beneficial material properties, motivates the study of InGaN photovoltaic devices. A number of groups have recently investigated InGaN-based homo-junction and hetero-junction p-i-n solar cells. However, very few groups have worked on InGaN Schottky solar cells. Compared to p-n junctions, Schottky barrier solar cells are cheaper to grow and fabricate; they are also expected to improve the spectral response because of near surface depletion regions in the shorter wavelength regions. In this particular work on InGaN based solar cells, a Schottky diode structure was used to avoid the issue of highly resistive p-type InGaN. In this study, platinum (Pt) is used to form a Schottky barrier with an InGaN/GaN absorber region. Electrical and optical properties of platinum films are investigated as a function of their thickness. InGaN/GaN Schottky solar cells with platinum as the transparent conductive film are reported and their performance is evaluated as a function of the metal thickness. | en |
| dc.description.degree | Master of Science | en |
| dc.format.medium | ETD | en |
| dc.identifier.other | vt_gsexam:3693 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/50527 | en |
| dc.publisher | Virginia Tech | en |
| dc.rights | In Copyright | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | en |
| dc.subject | Transparent conductive layer | en |
| dc.subject | Schottky solar cell | en |
| dc.subject | Device characterization | en |
| dc.title | Impact of Electrical Contacting Scheme on Performance of InGaN/GaN Schottky Solar Cells | en |
| dc.type | Thesis | en |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Electrical Engineering | en |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | en |
| thesis.degree.level | masters | en |
| thesis.degree.name | Master of Science | en |