High voltage photovoltaics integrated with light emitting diode containing zinc oxide containing layer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10249783-B2
Application number	US-201715831844-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 5, 2017
Priority date	Mar 24, 2017
Publication date	Apr 2, 2019
Grant date	Apr 2, 2019

Abstract

An electrical device that includes a material stack present on a supporting substrate. An LED is present in a first end of the material stack having a first set of bandgap materials. A photovoltaic device is present in a second end of the material stack having a second set of bandgap materials. The first end of the material stack being a light receiving end, wherein a widest bandgap material for the first set of bandgap material is greater than a highest bandgap material for the second set of bandgap materials. A zinc oxide interface layer is present between the LED and the photovoltaic device. The zinc oxide layers or can also form a LED.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of forming an electrical device is comprising:
growing an LED junction on a supporting substrate;
forming an zinc oxide interface layer on the LED junction;
forming a photovoltaic device junction on the zinc oxide interface layer by molecular beam epitaxial growth, wherein the zinc oxide interface layer entirely physically separates the LED junction from the photovoltaic device junction, the zinc oxide interface layer extending an entire width of the photovoltaic device junction; and
forming contacts to the LED junction and the photovoltaic device junction, wherein the semiconductor material layers in the photovoltaic device junction that is at a light receiving end of the electrical device have a wider band gap than the LED junction that is not at the light receiving end of the electrical device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the molecular beam epitaxial growth is free of hydrogen.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said growing the LED junction comprises chemical vapor deposition or molecular beam epitaxial growth.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein forming the contacts comprises:
etching a first opening to the photovoltaic device junction;
etching a second opening to the LED junction; and
forming metal electrodes to the LED junction and photovoltaic device junction.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the photovoltaic device junction comprises an n-type gallium nitride layer and a p-type gallium nitride layer, or the photovoltaic device junction comprises a p-type aluminum gallium nitride layer and an n-type aluminum gallium nitride layer.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising activation annealing of the first junction prior to forming the second junction.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said zinc oxide interface layer comprises aluminum zinc oxide.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Bedell Stephen W
• Li Ning
• Sadana Devendra K
• Shahidi Ghavam G

Classifications

• Y02E10/544

  Solar cells from Group III-V materials · CPC title

• H10W90/00 Primary

  Package configurations · CPC title

• H01L33/0075

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L33/32

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L33/06

  Electricity · mapped topic