Abstract
We have observed lifetimes greater than 1 ps in moderately doped, thin film, n-GaAs/A1a,Gae,As double heterostructure membranes formed by etching away the substrate. We attribute these ultralong lifetimes to enhanced photon recycling caused by the removal of the substrate. Nonradiative recombination in the bulk and at the interfaces is very low; the upper limit of the interface recombination velocity is 25 cm/S.-Such long lifetimes in GaAs doped at N,= 1.3 X 10” cme3 suggest that thin-film solar cells offer a potential option for achieving very high efficiencies.
Date of this Version
1992
Published in:
Appl. Phys. Lett. 61 (20). 16 November 1992
Comments
Copyright (1992) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 61 (20). 16 November 1992 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.108190. The following article has been submitted to/accepted by Applied Physics Letters Copyright (1992) G. B. Lush, M. R. Melloch, and M. S. Lundstrom D. H. Levi and R. K. AhrenkielH. F. MacMillan. This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.