Characteristics of InAs/GaNAs strain-compensated quantum dot solar cell

We have fabricated and compared the performance of GaAs-based p-i-n quantum dot solar cells with ten multilayer stacked structures of self-assembled InAs quantum dots embedded with GaNxAs1-x strain-compensating spacer layers. Reducing the thickness of the spacer layer, and hence increasing the nitrogen composition in GaNxAs1-x, from 40 nm (x = 0.5%) to 15 nm (x = 1.5%) thereby fulfilling the net strain-balanced condition, resulted in a steady increase in the short-circuit density, while a decreasing trend for the open-circuit voltage was observed. The observed results can be interpreted in terms of the difference in the quantum confinement structure. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3176903]