NON-DESTRUCTIVE LOCAL DIAGNOSTICS OF OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES

dissertation

English

To obtain novel materials for emerging optoelectronic devices, deeper insight into their structure is required. To achieve this, the development and application of new diagnostic methods is necessary. To contribute to these goals, this dissertation thesis is concerned with local diagnostics, including non-destructive mechanical, electrical and optical techniques for examining the surface of optoelectronic devices and materials. These techniques allows us to understand and improve the overall efficiency and reliability of optoelectronic device structures, which are generally degraded by defects, absorption, internal reflection and other losses. The main effort of the dissertation work is focused on the study of degradation phenomena, which are most often caused by both global and local heating, resulting in increased diffusion of ions and vacancies in the materials of interest. From a variety of optoelectronic devices, we have chosen two representative devices: a) solar cells - a large p-n junction device, and b) thin films - substrates for micro optoelectronic devices. In both cases we provide their detailed surface characterization. For the solar cells, scanning probe microscopy was chosen as the principal tool for non-destructive characterization of surface properties. This method is described, and both positive and negative aspects of the methods used are explained on the basis of literature review and our own experiments. An opinion on the use of probe microscopy applications to study solar cells is given. For the thin films, two interesting, from the stability point of view, materials were chosen as candidates for heterostructure preparation: sapphire and silicon carbide. The obtained data and image analysis showed a correlation between surface parameters and growth conditions for the heterostructures studied for optoelectronic applications. The thesis substantiates using these prospective materials to improve optoelectronic device performance, stability and reliability.

Local characterization, optoelectronics, material, silicon solar cells, aluminum nitride, silicon carbide, heterostructure, thin film, scanning probe microscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, image processing, statistical analysis, fractal analysis

SOBOLA, D.

6. 8. 2015

FEKT VUT

1

108

108