Crystalline perfection of InGaN epi-layers is the missing design parameter for InGaN solar cells. Structural deterioration of InGaN epi-layers depends on the thickness, composition and growth conditions as well. Increasing the InGaN epi-layer thickness beyond a critical point introduces extended crystalline defects that hinder the optical absorption and electrical properties. Increasing the InGaN composition further reduces this critical layer thickness. The optical absorption band edge is sharp for III-nitride direct band gap materials. The band edge profile is deteriorated by creation of extended crystalline defects in the InGaN epitaxial material. The design of InGaN solar cells requires the growth of epi-layers where a trade off between crystalline perfection and optical absorption properties is reached.

InGaP layers grown on non-polar and polar GaAs substrate faces are investigated by Raman spectroscopy, microphotoluminescence and cathodoluminescence. The growth on polar faces benefits disorder respect to the layers grown on non polar (001) faces. It is shown that both (111)Ga and (111)As faces result in disordered InGaP layers. However, the layers grown on (111)As faces present inhomogeneous composition. The layers grown on (111)Ga faces present homogeneous composition close to lattice matching and are almost disordered.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) has attracted resurgent interest as an active material for energy-efficient lighting applications. An optically transparent crystal, ZnO emits light in the blue-to-UV region of the spectrum. The efficiency of the emission is higher than more “conventional” materials such as GaN, making ZnO a strong candidate for solid-state white lighting. Despite its advantages, however, ZnO suffers from a major drawback: as grown, it contains a relatively high level of donors. These unwanted defects compensate acceptors or donate free electrons to the conduction band, thereby keeping the Fermi level in the upper half of the band gap. This paper reviews recent work on hydrogen donors and nitrogen-hydrogen complexes in ZnO.

We have studied the low-temperature growth of GaNAs layers on sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. We have succeeded in achieving GaN1-xAsx alloys over a large composition range by growing the films at temperature much below the normal GaN growth temperatures with increasing the As2 flux as well as Ga:N flux ratio. We found that the alloys with high As content x>0.1 are amorphous. Optical absorption measurements reveal a continuous gradual decrease of band gap from ˜3.4 eV to ˜1.4 eV with increasing As content. The energy gap reaches its minimum of ˜1.4 eV at the x˜0.6-0.7. For amorphous GaAsN alloys with x<0.3 the composition dependence of the band gap follows the prediction of the band anticrossing model developed for dilute alloys. This suggests that the amorphous GaN1-xAsx alloys have short-range ordering that resembles random crystalline GaN1-xAsx alloys. Such amorphous GaN1-xAsx alloys with tunable electronic structure may be useful as photoanodes in photo-electrochemical cells for hydrogen production.

Considerable amount of works have been reported to achieve a high breakdown voltage of AlGaN/GaN heterostructure devices by employing additional process such as SiO2 passivation1,2, floating metal rings and Ni/Au Oxidation3. However, it should be point out that treatment of passivation layer of AlGaN/GaN heterostructure devices has been reported scarcely. As+ ion implantation on SiO2 passivation layer may be a simple and effective to reduce electric field strength to increase breakdown voltages. The cross-sectional view of the proposed AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode is shown in Fig. 1. We fabricated conventional AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode and passivated the device with SiO2 layer of 350 nm thick. Finally As+ ions were implanted on the SiO2 passivation layer. We measured the surface potential of the test samples with electric force microscopy (EFM) in order to verify that implanted As+ ions remained as positively charged ions in SiO2 layer after ion implantation. After ion implantation, 2 dimensional electron gas (2DEG) concentration was increased slightly from 8.28E12 /cm2 to 8.38E12 /cm2 so that the forward current was also increased slightly. Table shows the breakdown voltages of the SBDs before and after As+ ion implantation. After As+ 80 keV 1 × 1E14 atoms/cm2 implantation, the breakdown voltage increased considerably from 604 V to 1204 V due to the edge termination by implanted As+ ions. The reverse leakage current decreased from 80.3 uA/mm to 21.2 nA/mm due to the relaxation of electric field concentration by As+ ion implantation. We verified the electric field relaxation through 2D simulation. After As+ ion implantation, the depletion region curvature under the reverse biased condition became moderate so that the maximum electric field strength was decreased. As+ ion implantation method may be a simple and effective edge termination method for improving the breakdown voltage as well as the leakage current of the proposed AlGaN/GaN SBDs. Proposed AlGaN/GaN SBDs showed high breakdown voltage of 1204 V and low leakage current of 21.2 nA/mm without any considerable decrease of forward characteristics while that of conventional device was 604 V and 80.3 uA/mm, respectively.

This paper reports enhanced internal-quantum-efficiency (IQE) in InGaN-based multi-quantum-well (MQW) grown on Si(111) substrate with underlying strained-layer-superlattice (SLS) cladding layer for application in LDs and LEDs. In comparative study between a thick Al0.03Ga0.97N bulk and an Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer, transmission-electron-microscopy (TEM) images reveal that Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer is effective to suppress threading dislocations. A higher IQE has been achieved in sample with underlying Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer, compared to that of Al0.03Ga0.97N bulk cladding layer. IQE of 31.6% has been achieved in sample with underlying Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer when the MQW thickness is reduced to 2 nm.

We have investigated the change of the Schottky contact surface and the interface between Schottky metals and AlGaN/GaN heterostructure after the annealing process for 35 min at 300 °C. The secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) and the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) show that the Schottky metals and AlGaN/GaN heterostructure interacted actively during the annealing process. The atoms in Schottky contact and AlGaN/GaN heterostructure diffused interactively and the surface roughness of Schottky contact was increased. After the annealing process for fabricated AlGaN/GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistor (HEMT), the threshold voltage was shifted by +0.2 V and the leakage current was decreased by 40 %.

ZnO thin films with thickness around 200 nm were deposited on a-plane sapphire substrates by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method with a mixed ZnO-powder/C-powder solid source. These films were characterized by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The correlation between surface structural properties of ZnO thin films and their optical signature measured by temperature dependence of PL is investigated for various growth conditions such as flow rate O2 injection gas and growth temperature. At room temperature, the columbic interaction enhanced absorption edge of 3.305 eV of these films was determined by optical absorption measurements.

Interconnected TiO2 nanobelt networks were prepared to serve as anode materials. The aim is to enhance the electron transport through the anode of dye-sensitized solar cells. Using an alkaline hydrothermal procedure and by controlling the reaction time, two kinds of nanostructures were synthesized: TiO2 nanobelts and the mixture of TiO2 nanobelts/TiO2 nanoparticles. This investigation suggests that TiO2 nanobelts are the result of the rearrangement of the [Ti(OH)6]2- monomers formed during the erosion process of TiO2 nanoparticles. The nanostructures of as-synthesized nanobelts were woven and interconnected, resulting in networks after an annealing process. Raman analysis indicates that both kinds of nanostructures were pure anatase. Electrical characterization suggests that the conductivities of these TiO2 nanobelt networks were higher than those of the TiO2 nanoparticle films. Under simulated sunlight with an intensity of AM 1.5 G, the solar cells made of TiO2 nanobelt networks show exceptional photocurrent in comparison to those made of TiO2 nanoparticles.

Strong polarization effects observed in III-nitride materials can invert the surface carrier type. The corresponding band bending can be used to design InGaN solar cells. Similar surface inversion was observed in the past with silicon-based Schottky-barrier solar cells, but was limited by Fermi level pinning. The formation of two-dimensional electron gas by polarization fields in III-nitrides has been reported. Using a similar idea, the growth of a thin AlN capping layer on p-InGaN has resulted in band bending, hence depletion region, under the surface that can be used separate any generated photo-carriers. Hall measurements at different depths on these structures confirm the inversion of surface carrier type. Solar cells based on this concept have resulted in an open circuit voltage of 2.15 V and short circuit current of 21.8 μA.

We reported the systematical study of optical properties of hexagonal AlxGa1-xN epitaxial films grown on c-sapphire substrate using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. By performing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements, the high-frequency dielectric constants and phonon frequencies can be obtained by theoretically fitting the experimental infrared reflectance spectra using a four-phase layered model. The high-frequency dielectric constant of AlxGa1-xN varies between 4.98 and 4.52 for ε∝,│(polarization perpendicular to the optical axis) and between 4.95 and 4.50 for ε∝,//(polarization parallel to the optical axis) respectively when the aluminum composition changes from 0.15 to 0.24. Furthermore, from experimental infrared reflectance spectra of AlxGa1-xN films, a specific absorption dip at 785 cm-1 was observed when the aluminum composition is larger than 0.24. The dip intensity increases and the dip frequency shifts from 785 to 812 cm-1 as aluminum composition increases from 0.24 to 0.58. According to the reciprocal space map of x-ray diffraction measurements, the emergence of this dip could be resulted from the effects of strain relaxation in AlGaN epitaxial layers due to the large lattice mismatch between GaN and AlGaN epitaxial film.

This paper reports improved optical characteristics of InGaN-based light-emitting-diode (LED) grown on Si(111) substrate by the insertion of an Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN strained-layer-superlattices (SLS) cladding layer after AlN/GaN multilayer (ML) growth, under the multi-quantum-well (MQW) active layer. The insertion of underlying Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer has shown to improve epitaxial layer quality in x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, reduce wavelength peak fluctuations in photoluminescence (PL) surface mapping, and improve optical and electrical characteristics of the LED sample. A 34% increase of light intensity at 50 mA current injection and a narrower wavelength peak have been achieved by the insertion of Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN SLS cladding layer. LED with underlying Al0.06Ga0.94N/GaN also shows superior current-voltage (I-V) characteristics with operation voltage of 3.2 V at 20 mA and series resistance of 16 Ω.

We report on a novel photodetector structure based on III-nitride materials. A layered configuration is used to create a barrier with voltage-tunable height. The barrier is used as a filter on photoexcited holes and electrons, and could form the basis for a dynamically tunable pixel in a hyperspectral imaging array. This would eliminate the need for external gratings and filters used in conventional hyperspectral instruments; in addition, the tunability of pixels allows decrease of the array dimension by one. The III-nitride materials family is a good candidate for this device, combining large band offsets with the ability for epitaxial growth. We have demonstrated the feasibility of using III-nitride materials to fabricate layered tunnel barriers, and have demonstrated tunability of photodetection using these structures. External quantum efficiencies of > 12% have been achieved with prototype devices.