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Dependence of the Property of InGaN p-i-n Solar Cells on the Light Concentration and Temperature
Xiao-Mei Cai, Sheng-Wei Zeng, Xin Li, Jiang-Yong Zhang, Shuo Lin, An-Kai Ling, Ming Chen, Wen-Jie Liu, Shao-Xiong Wu, and Bao-Ping Zhang

AbstractThe effects of the light concentration and temperature on the performance of InGaN p-i-n homojunction solar cells were investigated experimentally. With the increase in the light concentration, the short-circuit current density Jsc increases linearly, and the open-circuit voltage Voc increases logarithmically. However, the ll factor F F and the relative efciency increase rst and then decrease. On the other hand, the performance of the solar cell becomes worse with the increase in temperature. The temperature coefcients of important parameters related with the cell property were discussed. The red shift of the peak external quantum efciencies was observed with increasing temperature due to the band-gap shrinkage. In addition, the ideality factor n and the reverse saturation current density Js were also investigated to reveal the intrinsic mechanism of temperature dependence and the effect of crystalline quality. This paper provides the variation trends of device characteristics, which are useful references concerning the reliability of GaN-based solar cells. Index TermsIllumination dependence, InGaN, reliability, solar cell, temperature dependence.

I. I NTRODUCTION

ITH THE revision of the InN band gap [1][3], IIInitride Inx Ga1x N alloys have been predicted to be an excellent candidate for full-solar-spectral photovoltaic (PV) applications. The materials exhibit many superior PV properties such as direct and continuously tunable band gaps, large absorption coefcients [4], high carrier mobility [5], high temperature resistance, and superior radioresistance [6]. All these indicate the possibility of realization of highly efcient

Manuscript received December 3, 2010; accepted August 17, 2011. Date of current version October 21, 2011. This work was supported in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 201112G008, by the Research Program of Xiamen Municipal Science & Technology Bureau under Grant 2006AA03Z110, by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 60876007 and Grant 10974165, and the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 91023048. The review of this paper was arranged by Editor S. A. Ringel. X.-M. Cai, S.-W. Zeng, S. Lin, A.-K. Ling, M. Chen, W.-J. Liu, and B.-P. Zhang are with the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China, and also with the Pen-Tung Sah MicroNano Technology Research Center, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China (e-mail: cxplum@163.com; zsw0307@163.com; 100.eye@163.com; linglenny@163.com; chenmingjiangxi@163.com; wenj-liu@163.com; bzhang@xmu.edu.cn). X. Li is with the Pen-Tung Sah MicroNano Technology Research Center, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China (e-mail: lixin01@xmu.edu.cn). J.-Y. Zhang and S.-X. Wu are with the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China (e-mail: jyzhang2010@xmu.edu.cn; cnwsx@xmu.edu.cn). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TED.2011.2166118

and radioresistant solar cells [7], [8]. A theoretical study has shown the potential of InGaN alloys in multijunction solar cells by offering exibility in the choice of band gaps [9], [10]. In addition, great progress has been made in the growth of n-type and p-type In-rich InGaN alloys recently [11][13]. An increasing research interest has arisen in the development of highly efcient multijunction and full-spectrum GaN-based solar cells. Up to date, some efforts have been made to improve the performance of GaN-based PV devices [14][16]. Even so, GaNbased solar cells are still at their early stage of technological development, and many problems still need to be investigated before highly efcient multijunction solar cells can be achieved. Light intensity and temperature are important factors that affect the performance of PV devices. In an ideal cell, efciency increases logarithmically with increasing light intensity [17], but in a real situation, when light intensity increases to a certain extent, it is accompanied by the increase in the heat generated from the incomplete photoelectric energy conversion, which reduces cell efciency. As a potential candidate in the future, it is thus important to understand the properties of InGaN PV devices under different light intensities and temperatures. Up to now, there are only a few reports on these issues. Jeng et al. investigated the temperature dependence of the performance of GaN-based multiple quantum-well solar cells (MQWSCs) in the range of 25 C340 C [18]. Dahal et al. studied the PV characteristics of GaN-based MQWSCs at various solar concentrations from 1 to 30 SU [8]. In this paper, we focus on Inx Ga1x N p-i-n homojunction solar cells and study the effects of light concentration and temperature on the cell performances (i.e., Voc , Jsc , F F , and ). The light concentration was varied from 0.28 to 4.35 SUN (AM0, i.e. Air Mass Zero solar spectral irradiance), and the temperature was changed in the range of 50 C130 C. It was found that the cell performance is improved with increasing light concentration within a certain range, whereas it becomes worse with the increase in temperature. A discussion is given concerning the experimental results. II. E XPERIMENT The details of the structure and the fabrication procedure of InGaN p-i-n homojunction solar cells were described previously [19]. A Thomas Swan low-pressure metalorganic chemical-vapor deposition system was used to grow material on c-plane sapphire. On a 2-m-thick Si-doped n-GaN layer, the main absorption region of the p-i-n homojunction was grown, which included a 200-nm Si-doped n-InGaN, 150-nm undoped

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valid for the intensity dependence of Voc within our measured concentration range, as described in the following: Voc = nkT /q ln(Jsc /Js ), (Jsc Js ) (1)

Fig. 1. Emission spectra of the Xe lamp with increased intensity.

i-InGaN, and 50-nm Mg-doped p-InGaN layers. A 20-nm Mgdoped p-GaN layer was nally deposited for the window layer. Hole concentration in p-GaN and electron concentration in n-GaN layers are approximately 1017 and 1018 cm3 , respectively. The In content of fabricated solar cells were low, i.e., x = 0.02 and 0.12. The size of a solar cell was 1 1 mm2 . Ti/Al/Au and Ni/Au were used for the n-ohmic and p-ohmic contacts, respectively. The devices were illuminated by a Xe lamp. Incident light was focused by a lens and passed through neutral density lters (attenuators) to vary the light intensity. Light intensities were evaluated by an HR4000 high-resolution miniature ber optics spectrometer and corresponding software. The emission spectra of the Xe lamp with increased intensity were shown in Fig. 1. Illumination intensities were normalized to the AM0 condition in terms of photons available for absorption. Dening AM0 as 1 SU, several normalized light concentrations of 0.028, 0.1, 0.17, 0.28, 0.42, 0.84, 2, 2.7, and 4.4 SU were corresponding to the light intensity of 2.29, 8.3, 13.8, 22.7, 34, 67.8, 160.4, 220.7, and 353.3 mW/cm2 , respectively. The temperature was controlled by a heating stage. Currentvoltage measurements were performed by a Keithley 2410 source meter and a Keithley 6514 electrometer system. Light was dispersed through an Acton monochrometer with 2400-g/mm UV-optimized grating and was focused on the solar cells to measure the external quantum efciencies (EQEs). The incident light power was calibrated by a UV-enhanced silicon photodetector at wavelengths from 200 to 450 nm. III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION The dependence on the light concentration of four device parameters were shown in Fig. 2 (i.e., the coordinates of light concentration and current density are logarithmic, whereas the others are linear). The light concentration was varied in the range of 0.284.35 SU (AM0) and was measured at room temperature. Fig. 2(a) and (b) indicates that both Jsc and Voc increase with increasing concentration. Specically, Jsc increases linearly, and Voc increases logarithmically. This means that Voc ln(Jsc ) and the general IV expression of (1) is

where q, n, k, T , and Js are the elementary charge, the diode ideality factor, the Boltzmann constant, the absolute temperature, and the reverse saturation current density, respectively. It is easy to understand that Jsc increases under increasing concentration because of more photon-induced carriers, and Voc thereupon increases. It should be noted that Voc cannot increase innitely. Voc is the reduction value of the p-n junction barrier induced by optical injection. When concentration increases to a certain extent, the p-n junction barrier vanishes, and then Voc reaches the maximum value. The increment of Voc observed in this paper is larger than that of MQWSC, e.g., V 0.08 V for an increased concentration of 12 SU, as in [8]. In addition, viewed in Fig. 2(b) is the obvious drop of Voc for the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell. The shunt resistances Rsh were determined to be 5.8 109 for the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell and 5.1 108 for the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell, respectively. Such big shunt resistances will hardly cause a decrease in Voc . Therefore, we mainly attributed the drop of Voc to the deterioration of InGaN crystal quality with higher In content, rather than the effect of large Rsh . The detailed interpretation was given in our previous paper [19]. With the increase in concentration, F F and begin to increase and then decrease. According to [20], the decrease is due to the power loss caused by the electrical series resistance Rs under higher current. Rs comes from the body resistance of semiconductor material, contact resistance, etc. From the results of the IV characteristics, worse rectifying properties were observed under enhanced concentration, i.e., smaller F F and a rounded shape of the IV curve [see inset in Fig. 2(c)]. The Rs values of Inx Ga1x N cells were determined to be 28 and 34 for x = 0.02 and x = 0.12, respectively, being comparable with other result reported previously [7]. A larger Rs of the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell results in a relative higher power loss and subsequent lower F F . The reduction of F F under enhanced concentration leads to the decrease in . As shown in Fig. 2(d), the of the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell is lower than that of the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell, owing to the much lower Voc induced by the defects with higher In content [19]. Fig. 3 shows the dark and light IV curves of In0.02 Ga0.98 N and In0.12 Ga0.88 N solar cells at the temperatures of 50 C and 130 C. The light concentration is 0.28 SU. The parameters of these solar cells are summarized in Table I. For both the solar cells, Jsc increases slightly, and Voc decreases signicantly at a higher temperature. For example, the Jsc of the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell increases from 0.54 to 0.61 mA/cm2 , and the Voc decreases from 2.06 V to 1.7 V. F F and decrease with increasing temperature due to the signicant drop of Voc . A discussion will be given later. Fig. 4 shows the temperature dependence of device parameters for Inx Ga1x N (x = 0.02, 0.12) solar cells under three different light concentrations. The corresponding temperature coefcients were obtained from the slope by linear tting and

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TABLE I PARAMETERS FOR Inx Ga1x N SOLAR CELLS UNDER THE TEMPERATURE OF 50 C AND 130 C

Fig. 2. (a) Jsc . (b) Voc . (c) F F . (d) Relative efciency of Inx Ga1x N p-i-n solar cells as a function of light concentration. Cells were measured at room temperature. The inset graph in Fig. 2(c) is the IV characteristic under 4.4 SU (AM0).

Fig. 4. Temperature dependence of (a) Voc , (b) Jsc , (c) F F , and (d) relative efciency of the Inx Ga1x N solar cells under different light concentrations indicated in the legend.

linearly with increasing temperature. The change rate of Voc with temperature is described as
Fig. 3. Dark and light IV curves of Inx Ga1x N solar cells at the temperatures of 50 C and 130 C for a concentration of 0.28 SU.

dVoc /dT = (Vg0 Voc + kT /q)/T

(2)

were listed in Table II. Temperature coefcients are quantities that indicate the stability of device properties. As shown in Fig. 4(a), for three light concentrations, Voc decreases almost

where Vg0 is the equivalent voltage of the semiconductor band gap at the absolute zero temperature. includes temperaturerelated factors determining Js [21]. It means that Voc decreases

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TABLE II TEMPERATURE COEFFICIENTS OF Inx Ga1x N SOLAR CELLS PARAMETERS

almost linearly with increasing temperature. In (1), the reverse saturation current density Js is given by Js = qDp n2 /(Lp ND ) + qDn n2 /(Ln NA ) i i where Js increases linearly with n2 and i n2 = 4(2kT /h2 )3 (mp mn )3/2 exp(Eg /T ). i (4) (3)

In the foregoing equations, Dn , Dp , Ln , Lp , mn , and mp are the electron and hole diffusion coefcients, diffusion lengths, and effective masses, respectively; NA and ND are the acceptor and donor concentrations, respectively; and ni and Eg are the intrinsic carrier concentration and band gap, respectively. According to (1), (3), and (4), it is seen that Voc decreases with increasing T , due to the increase in ni and the reduction of diffusion length (i.e., the increase in recombination). The decrease in Voc with increasing temperature arises mainly from ni (Js n2 ). Moreover, larger Eg will result in smaller ni ; i thus, Voc is more stable. If we dene the sensitivity of Voc with temperature as (1/Voc )dVoc /dT , the sensitivity values for In0.02 Ga0.98 N and In0.12 Ga0.88 N solar cells under 0.28 SU are only about 0.21% and 0.27%, respectively. On the other hand, the magnitude of dVoc /dT itself decreases under higher concentration. In (2), the only concentration-dependent term is Voc /T . It increases at high concentrations and then makes dVoc /dT less negative. This is consistent with our results in Table II. For example, when we use the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell, dVoc /dT decreases from 4.54 to 3.94 mV/ C as the concentration increases from 0.1 to 2 SU. This variation trend has also been observed in Ge/GaAs/GaInP three-junction solar cells [22]. Their interpretation is that, as Jsc increases, Js becomes less of importance compared with the forward current density. It was also found that Jsc increases with increasing temperature, as illustrated in Fig. 4(b). This is mainly attributed to the band-gap shrinkage. According to the popular Varshni relationship for the temperature dependence of the band-gap energy Eg (T ) = Eg (0) T 2 /(T + ) (5)

Fig. 5. Relative EQEs of Inx Ga1x N solar cells at the temperatures of 40 C and 120 C.

where and are the tting characteristic parameters of a given material, the band-gap energy decreases with increasing temperature. The decreased Eg indicates more absorption of incident light of longer wavelength, which leads to an increase in Jsc . In Table II, it is seen that, as the light concentration increases, the temperature coefcient dJsc /dT also increases. This variation trend is similar to the GaInP/InGaAs/Ge

solar cell [22]. One can see that the dJsc /dT values of the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell are lower than those of the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell. This may be due to the higher energy barrier for the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell, which is unfavorable for the transport of photon-induced carriers. Furthermore, it is also attributed to the degraded crystalline quality for the higher In content of the In0.12 Ga0.88 N lm, which also causes the reduction of the lifetime of photon-induced carriers and then the collection efciency of carriers. These can be veried also in Fig. 5, which shows the relative EQEs for Inx Ga1x N solar cells at 40 C and 120 C. The highest EQE was assumed to be 1, and all other values were plotted relative to it. At 40 C (near the room temperature), distinct drops in EQEs at 375 and 405 nm were observed for the In0.02 Ga0.98 N and In0.12 Ga0.88 N cells, respectively, which correspond to the absorption edges of InGaN. At a higher temperature, the band-gap narrowing effect results in the red-shift phenomena of absorption edges for both cells. The red shift indicates that a wider spectral range of incident light can be absorbed by the Inx Ga1x N solar cell at a higher temperature, which results in higher Jsc . Compared with x = 0.02, a reduction in the EQE is observed for x = 0.12. It is caused by the degraded crystalline quality and the higher energy barrier in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell, which cause a reduction in the collection efciency of carriers, and then a smaller dJsc /dT . Shown in Fig. 4(c) and (d) are the F F and as a function of temperature for three different light concentrations. Except for the case of the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell under the concentration of 2 SU, F F decreases as temperature increases. This may be due to the fact that F F is a function of Voc and has the same change trend with it [21]. Therefore, F F also decreases with

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Fig. 6. Temperature dependence of (a) ideality factor and (b) reverse saturation current for Inx Ga1x N solar cells.

increasing temperature. Not only Voc but also other factors can affect F F , such as recombination, parasitic resistance, doping level, etc. Larger series resistance and more defects induced by degraded crystalline quality in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell both result in not only lower F F but also more negative dF F/dT . While it seems strange that there is an increasing tendency of F F for the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell under 2-SU concentration, i.e., F F increases with increasing temperature. The exact mechanism of this phenomenon is still unknown yet, and more experiments are needed. Just because of the upward variation trend of F F under 2-SU concentration, the corresponding does not change monotonously with temperature; specically, it increases slightly and then decreases. The corresponding piecewise d/dT values are given in Table II. On the other hand, Voc is a main factor of determining . Although Jsc increases with increasing temperature, the decrease in Voc plays a more important role, which results in the decrease in as increasing temperature. Fig. 6 shows the ideality factor and the reverse saturation current density Js of Inx Ga1x N solar cells as a function of temperature. They are generally derived from the slope and the intercept of dark IV , respectively. The ideality factor is directly related to carrier transport, recombination, and resistivity and, thus, a useful parameter to evaluate the effect of material quality on device performance. We note that the ideality factors of both cells were higher than the normal values 12. The abnormal high diode ideality factors may be the summation of a series of ideality factors. As Shah et al. proposed, a series of rectifying unipolar heterojunctions and metalsemiconductor junctions should be taken into account because each of them has an associated ideality [23]. Similar results of high ideality factors for GaN-based diodes can also be seen in other reports [23][27]. In addition, ideality factors of the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell (nideality : 6.75) are higher than those of the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell (nideality : 5.64.1). This indicates that a higher density of recombination centers may exist in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell with higher In content, on account of the same structure and process ow for both cells. As shown in Fig. 6(a), the ideality factors of Inx Ga1x N solar cells decrease with increased temperature ranging from 27 C to 130 C. This may be due to a more ohmic behavior of contact and an improved p-type transport property caused by the higher activation of acceptors at elevated temperatures. As shown in Fig. 6(b), the Js of Inx Ga1x N solar cells increases with increasing temperature, i.e., from

1.8 1010 (2.2 107 A/cm2 ) to 3.7 109 A/cm2 (1.8 106 A/cm2 ) for the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell (In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell). Js increases with increasing temperature due to the increase in ni and the reduction of diffusion length (i.e., the increase in recombination). These further result in lower Voc and the corresponding F F at high temperature [see (3) and (4)]. Compared with the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell, a dramatic increase of three orders of magnitude of Js occurs in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell. The increase in Js results in a signicant decrease in Voc , as discussed above. The reduction of Voc was much larger than that expected from the optical band gap of InGaN, i.e., the Voc drop of almost 0.8 mV between the two devices is nearly threefold larger than that expected from the reduction of the band gap associated with an increase of 10% indium content. The higher Js and n imply the degraded crystalline quality in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell. This explains why there is a large drop of Voc in the In0.12 Ga0.88 N cell compared with the In0.02 Ga0.98 N cell. A detailed corresponding interpretation and comparison were given in our previous paper [19]. IV. C ONCLUSION In summary, we have studied the effects of light concentration and temperature on the performance of InGaN p-i-n homojunction solar cells. With light concentration increased, both Jsc and Voc increase, whereas F F and increase rst and then decrease. By increasing temperature, the performance of cells becomes worse. The rapid decrease in Voc together with the subsequent reduction of F F leads to the reduction of . The temperature dependence of is mainly affected by Voc . The temperature coefcients of several main device parameters under different light intensities were also discussed. Due to the band-gap shrinkage, the red shifts of the peak EQE and the absorption edge were observed with increasing temperature. Moreover, the investigation of the ideality factor and Js further demonstrates the effect of material quality and the intrinsic mechanism of temperature dependence. These results are useful for a full understanding of the performance and reliability of InGaN solar cells. R EFERENCES
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Xiao-Mei Cai was born in Fujian, China, in 1982. She received the B.S. degree in physics from Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 2006. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in microelectronics and solid electronics with Xiamen University. In September 2008, she joined the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University. Her research interests are GaN-based materials and related optoelectronic devices.

Sheng-Wei Zeng was born in Hainan, China, in 1984. He received the B.S. degree and the M.S. degree in condensed matter physics from Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. In September 2007, he joined the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University. His research interests include GaN-based materials and related optoelectronic devices.

Xin Li He received the Ph.D. degree in material science and engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. During his doctoral studies, he worked in the eld of semiconductor materials for solar cells. He is currently an Assistant Professor with Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.

Jiang-Yong Zhang was born in Hebei, China, in 1981. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Hebei University, Baoding, China, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2010. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. His research interests include IIInitride semiconductor lasers, vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers, and light-emitting diodes.

Shuo Lin was born in Fujian, China, in 1982. He received the B.S. degree in physics from Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China, in 2004 and the M.S. degree in theoretical physics from Guangxi University, Nanning, China, in 2009. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in microelectronics and solid electronics with the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. In September 2009, he joined the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University. His research interests are photovoltaic devices and materials.

An-Kai Ling was born in Fujian, China, in 1988. He received the B.S. degree in physics from the Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 2006, where he is currently working toward the M.S. degree in the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics. His research interests are GaN-based materials and related optoelectronic devices.

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Ming Chen was born in Jiangxi, China, in 1989. He received the B.E. degree in information science from Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2009. He is currently working toward the M.E. degree with the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. His research interests include III-nitride semiconductor lasers, vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers, and light-emitting diodes.

Shao-Xiong Wu was born in Fujian, China, in 1985. He received the B.S. degree from Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China, in 2007 and the M.S. degree from Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2009. He is currently an Assistant Engineer with the Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. His research interests include the measurement and characterization of semiconductor materials.

Wen-Jie Liu was born in Inner Mongolia, China, in 1988. She received the B.S. degree from Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, in 2009. In September 2009, she joined the Laboratory of MicroNano Optoelectronics, Department of Physics, Xiamen University. Her research interests include GaN-based light-emitting diodes and vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers.

Bao-Ping Zhang was born in Hebei, China, in 1963. He received the B.S. degree in physics from Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, in 1983; the M.E. degree in electronic engineering from Hebei Semiconductor Research Institute (HSRI), Shijiazhuang, China, in 1986; and the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1994. From 1986 to 1989, he was with HSRI. From 1994 to 1998, he was with the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Sendai, Japan. From 1998 to 1999, he was with Sharp Cooperation, Nara, Japan. From 1999 to 2005, he was with RIKEN. From 1999 to 2006, he was with Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan. In 2006, he joined the Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, as a Professor. His current research interests include low-dimensional semiconductor materials and related optoelectronic devices.