Growth of GaP layers on Si substrates in a standard MOVPE reactor for multijunction solar cells

Abstract

Gallium phosphide (GaP) is an ideal candidate to implement a III-V nucleation layer on a silicon substrate. The optimization of this nucleation has been pursued for decades, since it can form a virtual substrate to grow monolithically III-V devices. In this work we present a GaP nucleation approach using a standard MOVPE reactor with regular precursors. This design simplifies the epitaxial growth in comparison to other routines reported, making the manufacturing process converge to an industrial scale. In short, our approach intends to mimic what is done to grow multijunction solar cells on Ge by MOVPE, namely, to develop a growth process that uses a single reactor to manufacture the complete III-V structure, at common MOVPE process temperatures, using conventional precursors. Here, we present the different steps in such GaP nucleation routine, which include the substrate preparation, the nucleation itself and the creation of a p-n junction for a Si bottom cell. The morphological and structural measurements have been made with AFM, SEM, TEM and Raman spectroscopy. These results show a promising surface for subsequent III-V growth with limited roughness and high crystallographic quality. For its part, the electrical characterization reveals that the routine has also formed a p-n junction that can serve as bottom subcell for the multijunction solar cell.