Indium tin oxide/gallium arsenide solar cells

Abstract

This communication discusses the performance of solar cells based on single‐crystal substrates of p‐type gallium arsenide (GaAs) and thin films of indium tin oxide (ITO) deposited by rf sputtering. Such devices have previously yielded conversion efficiencies of less than 5% but here, efficiencies of greater than 7% are reported. This is still poor by comparison with devices based on indium phosphide (InP)/ITO and the reason seems to be due to the excessive values and rather low activation energy (ΔE) of J₀. The variation of quantum efficiency with wavelength shows a peak at about 80% for a wavelength around 600 nm.