Directly Linking Low-Angle Grain Boundary Misorientation to Device Functionality for GaAs Grown on Flexible Metal Substrates

Jonathan D. Poplawsky; Pavel Dutta; Harvey Guthrey; Donovan Leonard; Wei Guo; Mitsul Kacharia; Monika Rathi; Devendra Khatiwada; Carlos Favela; Sicong Sun; Chuanze Zhang; Seth Hubbard; Venkat Selvamanickam

doi:10.1021/acsami.9b22124

Directly Linking Low-Angle Grain Boundary Misorientation to Device Functionality for GaAs Grown on Flexible Metal Substrates

Jonathan D. Poplawsky, Pavel Dutta, Harvey Guthrey, Donovan Leonard, Wei Guo, Mitsul Kacharia, Monika Rathi, Devendra Khatiwada, Carlos Favela, Sicong Sun, Chuanze Zhang, Seth Hubbard, Venkat Selvamanickam

Materials MicroAnalysis

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

A new growth method to make highly oriented GaAs thin films on flexible metal substrates has been developed, enabling roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible semiconductor devices. The grains are oriented in the <001> direction with <1° misorientations between them, and they have a comparable mobility to single-crystalline GaAs at high doping concentrations. At the moment, the role of low-angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) on device performance is unknown. A series of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and cathodoluminesence (CL) studies reveal that increased doping concentrations decrease the grain size and increase the LAGB misorientation. Cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals the complex dislocation structures within LAGBs. Most importantly, a correlative EBSD/electron beam-induced current (EBIC) experiment reveals that LAGBs are carrier recombination centers and that the magnitude of recombination is dependent on the degree of misorientation. The presented results directly link increased LAGB misorientation to degraded device performance, and therefore, strategies to reduce LAGB misorientations and densities would improve highly oriented semiconductor devices.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	10664-10672
Number of pages	9
Journal	ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume	12
Issue number	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b22124
State	Published - Mar 4 2020

Funding

Research was conducted at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility. This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract no. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding was provided by U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. The work at UH was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative Award DE-EE-0006711. The authors would like to thank Paul Haney for useful discussions.

Keywords

cathodoluminescence
electron beam-induced current
flexible semiconductors
photovoltaics
scanning transmission electron microscopy

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10.1021/acsami.9b22124

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Poplawsky, J. D., Dutta, P., Guthrey, H., Leonard, D., Guo, W., Kacharia, M., Rathi, M., Khatiwada, D., Favela, C., Sun, S., Zhang, C., Hubbard, S., & Selvamanickam, V. (2020). Directly Linking Low-Angle Grain Boundary Misorientation to Device Functionality for GaAs Grown on Flexible Metal Substrates. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 12(9), 10664-10672. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b22124

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abstract = "A new growth method to make highly oriented GaAs thin films on flexible metal substrates has been developed, enabling roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible semiconductor devices. The grains are oriented in the <001> direction with <1° misorientations between them, and they have a comparable mobility to single-crystalline GaAs at high doping concentrations. At the moment, the role of low-angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) on device performance is unknown. A series of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and cathodoluminesence (CL) studies reveal that increased doping concentrations decrease the grain size and increase the LAGB misorientation. Cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals the complex dislocation structures within LAGBs. Most importantly, a correlative EBSD/electron beam-induced current (EBIC) experiment reveals that LAGBs are carrier recombination centers and that the magnitude of recombination is dependent on the degree of misorientation. The presented results directly link increased LAGB misorientation to degraded device performance, and therefore, strategies to reduce LAGB misorientations and densities would improve highly oriented semiconductor devices.",

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Poplawsky, JD, Dutta, P, Guthrey, H, Leonard, D, Guo, W, Kacharia, M, Rathi, M, Khatiwada, D, Favela, C, Sun, S, Zhang, C, Hubbard, S & Selvamanickam, V 2020, 'Directly Linking Low-Angle Grain Boundary Misorientation to Device Functionality for GaAs Grown on Flexible Metal Substrates', ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 10664-10672. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b22124

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AU - Leonard, Donovan

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AU - Rathi, Monika

AU - Khatiwada, Devendra

AU - Favela, Carlos

AU - Sun, Sicong

AU - Zhang, Chuanze

AU - Hubbard, Seth

AU - Selvamanickam, Venkat

PY - 2020/3/4

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N2 - A new growth method to make highly oriented GaAs thin films on flexible metal substrates has been developed, enabling roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible semiconductor devices. The grains are oriented in the <001> direction with <1° misorientations between them, and they have a comparable mobility to single-crystalline GaAs at high doping concentrations. At the moment, the role of low-angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) on device performance is unknown. A series of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and cathodoluminesence (CL) studies reveal that increased doping concentrations decrease the grain size and increase the LAGB misorientation. Cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals the complex dislocation structures within LAGBs. Most importantly, a correlative EBSD/electron beam-induced current (EBIC) experiment reveals that LAGBs are carrier recombination centers and that the magnitude of recombination is dependent on the degree of misorientation. The presented results directly link increased LAGB misorientation to degraded device performance, and therefore, strategies to reduce LAGB misorientations and densities would improve highly oriented semiconductor devices.

AB - A new growth method to make highly oriented GaAs thin films on flexible metal substrates has been developed, enabling roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible semiconductor devices. The grains are oriented in the <001> direction with <1° misorientations between them, and they have a comparable mobility to single-crystalline GaAs at high doping concentrations. At the moment, the role of low-angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) on device performance is unknown. A series of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and cathodoluminesence (CL) studies reveal that increased doping concentrations decrease the grain size and increase the LAGB misorientation. Cross-sectional scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals the complex dislocation structures within LAGBs. Most importantly, a correlative EBSD/electron beam-induced current (EBIC) experiment reveals that LAGBs are carrier recombination centers and that the magnitude of recombination is dependent on the degree of misorientation. The presented results directly link increased LAGB misorientation to degraded device performance, and therefore, strategies to reduce LAGB misorientations and densities would improve highly oriented semiconductor devices.

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Directly Linking Low-Angle Grain Boundary Misorientation to Device Functionality for GaAs Grown on Flexible Metal Substrates

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