Sputtered Schottky barrier solar cells on p-type GaAs

Schottky barrier solar cells have been produced on single crystal p-type GaAs by sputtering gold to form the barrier. The rectifying action for the gold sputtered p-type device is unique to the method since normal thermal evaporated gold onto p-type produced Ohmic contacts. The opposite behavior was observed for n-type GaAs. Barrier heights have been measured for both p-type (sputtered) and n-type (thermal) diodes using current-voltage and capacitance-voltage methods and are 0.90 and 0.95 eV, respectively. The power conversion efficiencies without AR coatings have values of 6.56% (p) and 5.58% (n). Deep level transient spectroscopy has been used to identify the trap center concentrations and energy levels for both diodes to account for the relatively large dark currents in the p-type (sputtered) diodes.