Room-temperature minority-carrier injection-enhanced recovery of radiation-induced defects in p-InGaP and solar cells

We present here the direct observation of minority-carrier injection-enhanced annealing of radiation-induced defects in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition grown p-InGaP at room temperature, and the consequent recovery of radiation damage in InGaP $n^{+}\mathrm{-p}$ junction solar cells. Deep level transient spectroscopy analysis shows that the main defect H2 ${\mathrm{(E}}_v\text{+0.55}$ eV) in p-InGaP exhibits minority-carrier injection-enhanced annealing characterized by an activation energy $\text{(ΔE=0.51}$ eV) close to the activation energy for the recovery $\text{(ΔE=0.54}$ eV) of the defect responsible for diffusion length degradation in $n^{+}\mathrm{-p}$ solar cells. The marked recovery of radiation damage in InGaP solar cells induced by minority-carrier injection is found to be correlated with the annihilation of the H2 defect.