Committee:

Dr. Abdallah Ougazzaden, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Jean Paul Salvestrini, ECE

Dr. Paul Voss, ECE

Dr. Ali Adibi, ECE

Dr. Thomas Sanders, MSE

Abstract:

A practical III-nitride (III-N) photovoltaic (PV) application consists of transfer to a foreign substrate with enhanced functionality and/or integration with mature group IV or III-V based solar cell technologies. This requires a lift-off technique compatible with good quality III-N materials, with photovoltaic device fabrication and with subsequent bonding on a heterogeneous substrate.  This thesis work demonstrates unprecedented InGaN-based solar cells on 2-inch h-BN/sapphire wafer and their transfer to glass with a backside reflector. III-N solar cells with various sizes and designs are processed and characterized on a full 2-inch wafer giving performances comparable to similar devices on sapphire. The subsequent crack-free transfer of the solar cells, enabled by Van der Waal bonded 2D layered h-BN, to a substrate with a backside reflector yields an increase in the short circuit current density of up to 20%. This demonstration of transferred InGaN-based solar cells on foreign substrates while increasing performance represents a major advance toward lightweight, low cost and high efficiency photovoltaic applications.