Indium-rich InGaN epitaxial layers grown pseudomorphically on a nano-sculpted InGaN template

Plasmonic and photonic enhancement of photovoltaic characteristics of indium-rich InGaN p-n junction solar cells

In this paper, we demonstrate via Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations that the performance of indium-rich In_xGa_1-xN (x = 0.6) p-n junction thin-film solar cells is improved by incorporating an integrated structure of a 2-dimensional (2D) array of ITO nanodiscs on the top surface and a 2D array of Ag nanodiscs in the active layer above the Ag back reflector of the solar cell. The bottom Ag nanodiscs primarily enhance the absorption of longer wavelengths by coupling incident light into surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and waveguide modes. The top ITO nanodiscs enhance the middle wavelengths (400 nm to 800 nm) by coupling the incident light to photonic modes in the active layer. Thus, the integrated structure of nanodisc arrays leads to a very high absorption in the active region in broad spectral range (> 0.85 for wavelengths lying between 350 nm and 800 nm), significantly increasing the short circuit current density (J_sc) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar cell. In the proposed solar cells, the geometries of the silver and ITO nanodiscs were optimized to obtain the maximum possible values of the J_sc. The highest enhancements in J_sc and PCE of ∼25% and ∼26%, respectively, were obtained in a solar cell containing the integrated structure of ITO and Ag nanodisc arrays. Moreover, the performance of these cells was examined under oblique light incidence and it was observed that the solar cells containing the integrated structure of nanodisc arrays have a significantly larger value of J_sc when compared to the cells having no nanostructures or having only the top ITO nanodisc array or only the bottom Ag nanodisc array.

Synthesis of Nanostructure InxGa1-xN Bulk Alloys and Thin Films for LED Devices

In this study, we investigated an innovative method for the fabrication of nanostructure bulk alloys and thin films of indium gallium nitride (InxGa1-xN) as active, thin films for light-emitting diode (LED) devices using both crystal growth and thermal vacuum evaporation techniques, respectively. These methods resulted in some tangible improvements upon the usual techniques of InxGa1-xN systems. A cheap glass substrate was used for the fabrication of the LED devices instead of sapphire. Indium (In) and Gallium (Ga) metals, and ammonia (NH3) were the precursors for the alloy formation. The alloys were prepared at different growth temperatures with compositions ranging from 0.1≤x≤0.9. InxGa1-xN alloys at 0.1≤x≤0.9 had different crystallinities with respect to X-Ray diffraction (XRD) patterns where the energy bandgap that was measured by photoluminescence (PL) fell in the range between 1.3 and 2.5 eV. The bulk alloys were utilized to deposit the thin films onto the glass substrate using thermal vacuum evaporation (TVE). The XRD thin films that were prepared by TVE showed high crystallinity of cubic and hexagonal structures with high homogeneity. Using TVE, the InxGa1-xN phase separation of 0.1≤x≤0.9 was eliminated and highly detected by XRD and FESEM. Also, the Raman spectroscopy confirmed the structure that was detected by XRD. The FESEM showed a variance in the grain size of both alloys and thin films. The InxGa1-xN LED device with the structure of glass/GaN/n-In0.1Ga0.9N:n/In0.1Ga0.9N/p-In0.1Ga0.9N:Mg was checked by the light emitted by electroluminescence (EL). White light generation is a promising new direction for the fabrication of such devices based on InxGa1-xN LED devices with simple and low-cost techniques.