Epitaxial Lattice Matching and the Growth Techniques of Compound Semiconductors for their Potential Photovoltaic Applications

Abstract

This paper presents the recent advances in semiconductor alloys for photovoltaic applications. The two main growth techniques involved in these compounds are metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), that has also been discussed. With these techniques, hetero-structures can be grown with a high efficiency. A combination of more than one semiconductor like GaAs, InGaAs and CuInGaAs increases the range of their electrical and optical properties. A large range of direct band gap, high optical absorption and emission coefficients make these materials optimally suitable for converting the light to electrical energy. Their electronic structures reveal that they are highly suitable for photovoltaic applications also because they exhibit spin orbit resonance and metal/semiconductor transitions. The dissociation energy has also been discussed in reference to the increased stability of these compounds.