Sputtered oxide/indium phosphide junctions and indium phosphide surfaces

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Abstract
The reason that sputtered indium‐tin oxide (ITO)/InP solar cells junctions with large lattice mismatch have the same efficiency as CdS/InP junctions with good lattice match is shown to be that sputtered ITO/InP junctions actually consist of n+‐ITO/n‐InP/p‐InP buried homojunctions. To demonstrate this and to show that the homojunction formation is caused by thermal damage to the InP surface during sputtering deposition rather than from impurity diffusion from the oxide, a series of five different metal oxide/InP junctions have been formed by sputtering of the oxide, all with high solar efficiency. Junctions have been prepared both from single‐crystal InP : Cd and from epitaxial crystal films of InP : Zn. The effects of sputter deposition of the oxide have been simulated by sputter etching of the InP surface, and the effects analyzed through measurements of the properties of Au/InP junctions, and of the Hall effect and photoluminescence of InP surfaces. Some heat treatment of the sputtered cells is required to achieve maximum efficiency, but excessive heat treatment causes degradation and often transformation from homojunctionlike to heterojunctionlike solar cell behavior. An actual In2O3/InP heterojunction solar cell has been prepared by thermal oxidation of the InP.