Stacked Ge islands for photovoltaic applications

Abstract

Stacked Ge islands formed via the Stranski–Krastanov growth mode were incorporated into the intrinsic layer of Si-based pin diode to improve the performance of the solar cells in the near-infrared regime. The onset of the external quantum efficiency was extended up to around 1.4 mm for the solar cells with stacked Ge islands. The quantum efficiency was found to increase with increasing number of stacking, and the onset of the photocurrent response was in good agreement withroom-temperature photoluminescence energy of the Ge islands. These results manifest that the Ge islands did play a role toincrease the quantum efficiency. Furthermore, a part of electron-hole pairs generated within Ge islands was separated by the internal electric field and contribute to the photocurrent.