Epitaxial lateral overgrowth of GaAsP for III-V/Si-based photovoltaics

GaAsP/Si with high crystalline quality fabricated by cost-effective heteroepitaxial technology is a promising pathway for realizing low-cost Si-based tandem solar cell with efficiency higher than 30%. Herein, hydride vapor-phase epitaxy is used to perform selective area growth of GaAsP with high lateral coverage, referred to as epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG). The ELOG is performed on GaAs-based substrates as a prestudy, followed by GaAs/Si and GaAsP/Si seed wafers employing chemical mechanical polishing to fabricate full 2" GaAsP/Si templates. These are subsequently used to grow and process GaAsP/Si pn-junction structures for electrical characterization. The ELOG GaAsP is studied by spatially resolved photoluminescence (PL) mapping and high-resolution X-ray diffraction measurements. PL analysis of the GaAsP/GaAs ELOG samples reveals an enhanced P-incorporation during lateral growth of GaAsP. This is also observed for the GaAsP/Si ELOG templates along with evidence of improved material quality, clearly distinguishing the laterally grown GaAsP from the planar growth directly above the Si substrate. Leakage pathways causing reduced electrical performance of the ELOG GaAsP/Si pn-junction structures are identified. (© 2023 The Authors. physica status solidi (a) applications and materials science published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH)