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Nanoscale Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide
[Image: see text] Growth approaches that limit the interface area between layers to nanoscale regions are emerging as a promising pathway to limit the interface defect formation due to mismatching lattice parameters or thermal expansion coefficient. Interfacial defect mitigation is of great interest...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Chemical Society
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9131307/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35647493 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.1c02484 |
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author | Escobar Steinvall, Simon Stutz, Elias Z. Paul, Rajrupa Zamani, Mahdi Leran, Jean-Baptiste Dimitrievska, Mirjana Fontcuberta i Morral, Anna |
author_facet | Escobar Steinvall, Simon Stutz, Elias Z. Paul, Rajrupa Zamani, Mahdi Leran, Jean-Baptiste Dimitrievska, Mirjana Fontcuberta i Morral, Anna |
author_sort | Escobar Steinvall, Simon |
collection | PubMed |
description | [Image: see text] Growth approaches that limit the interface area between layers to nanoscale regions are emerging as a promising pathway to limit the interface defect formation due to mismatching lattice parameters or thermal expansion coefficient. Interfacial defect mitigation is of great interest in photovoltaics as it opens up more material combinations for use in devices. Herein, an overview of the vapor–liquid–solid and selective area epitaxy growth approaches applied to zinc phosphide (Zn(3)P(2)), an earth-abundant absorber material, is presented. First, we show how different morphologies, including nanowires, nanopyramids, and thin films, can be achieved by tuning the growth conditions and growth mechanisms. The growth conditions are also shown to greatly impact the defect structure and composition of the grown material, which can vary considerably from the ideal stoichiometry (Zn(3)P(2)). Finally, the functional properties are characterized. The direct band gap could accurately be determined at 1.50 ± 0.1 eV, and through complementary density functional theory calculations, we can identify a range of higher-order band gap transitions observed through valence electron energy loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence. Furthermore, we outline the formation of rotated domains inside of the material, which are a potential origin of defect transitions that have been long observed in zinc phosphide but not yet explained. The basic understanding provided reinvigorates the potential use of earth-abundant II–V semiconductors in photovoltaic technology. Moreover, the transferrable nanoscale growth approaches have the potential to be applied to other material systems, as they mitigate the constraints of substrate–material combinations causing interface defects. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9131307 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | American Chemical Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91313072022-05-26 Nanoscale Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide Escobar Steinvall, Simon Stutz, Elias Z. Paul, Rajrupa Zamani, Mahdi Leran, Jean-Baptiste Dimitrievska, Mirjana Fontcuberta i Morral, Anna ACS Appl Energy Mater [Image: see text] Growth approaches that limit the interface area between layers to nanoscale regions are emerging as a promising pathway to limit the interface defect formation due to mismatching lattice parameters or thermal expansion coefficient. Interfacial defect mitigation is of great interest in photovoltaics as it opens up more material combinations for use in devices. Herein, an overview of the vapor–liquid–solid and selective area epitaxy growth approaches applied to zinc phosphide (Zn(3)P(2)), an earth-abundant absorber material, is presented. First, we show how different morphologies, including nanowires, nanopyramids, and thin films, can be achieved by tuning the growth conditions and growth mechanisms. The growth conditions are also shown to greatly impact the defect structure and composition of the grown material, which can vary considerably from the ideal stoichiometry (Zn(3)P(2)). Finally, the functional properties are characterized. The direct band gap could accurately be determined at 1.50 ± 0.1 eV, and through complementary density functional theory calculations, we can identify a range of higher-order band gap transitions observed through valence electron energy loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence. Furthermore, we outline the formation of rotated domains inside of the material, which are a potential origin of defect transitions that have been long observed in zinc phosphide but not yet explained. The basic understanding provided reinvigorates the potential use of earth-abundant II–V semiconductors in photovoltaic technology. Moreover, the transferrable nanoscale growth approaches have the potential to be applied to other material systems, as they mitigate the constraints of substrate–material combinations causing interface defects. American Chemical Society 2021-10-04 2022-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9131307/ /pubmed/35647493 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.1c02484 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Permits the broadest form of re-use including for commercial purposes, provided that author attribution and integrity are maintained (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Escobar Steinvall, Simon Stutz, Elias Z. Paul, Rajrupa Zamani, Mahdi Leran, Jean-Baptiste Dimitrievska, Mirjana Fontcuberta i Morral, Anna Nanoscale Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title | Nanoscale
Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve
the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title_full | Nanoscale
Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve
the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title_fullStr | Nanoscale
Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve
the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title_full_unstemmed | Nanoscale
Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve
the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title_short | Nanoscale
Growth Initiation as a Pathway to Improve
the Earth-Abundant Absorber Zinc Phosphide |
title_sort | nanoscale
growth initiation as a pathway to improve
the earth-abundant absorber zinc phosphide |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9131307/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35647493 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.1c02484 |
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