Transcript Indium Gallium Nitride Solar Cells (Charles Ball)

Indium gallium
nitride
By Charles Ball
MEEN 3344
October 15, 2008
Characteristics of Indium Gallium
Nitride
• Semi Conductor Material
• high heat capacity
• mix of gallium nitride (GaN) and indium
nitride (InN)
• Defect Rich
Band Gap
• Between Valence and
Conduction bands.
• Electrons may jump from
valence to conduction band if
supplied with specific energy.
• This specific energy is unique
for all materials.
Conductor Band
Lab Discovery
•Semiconductor Indium Nitride band
gap re-measured and found to be
0.7eV instead of 2.0eV.
•By Adjusting the composition %’s it
can be tuned to any part of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Advantages / Disadvantages
Advantages
•Low Band gap (o.7eV)
•Smooth gap-curve when
adjusting alloy composition.
• Easily made into layers
(very tolerant to
mismatched lattice
systems)
Disadvantages
•Difficult to dope to create
p-type material
•Billions of defects per
square centimeter.
References
•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_gap
•http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-full-spectrumsolar-cell.html
•http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-perfect-solarcell-2.html
•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium_gallium_nitride