SBIR Phase I: Advanced Lift-off Technology for Low cost III-V Solar Cell Manufacturing

This SBIR Phase I research project will develop a lower cost high quality compound semiconductor thin film for advanced renewable energy technology. This program will investigate Multiple-layer Epitaxial Lift Off (MELO) technique as it applies to a group of Photovoltaic (PV) epitaxial structures grown on GaAs. Current state of the art PV devices are fabricated on expensive GaAs substrates, which are then incorporated into the final product at high costs. MELO will significantly reduce the cost down to the epitaxial material costs alone by spreading the total manufacturing cycle over many structures on one wafer. The company will have established a 100mm diameter Epitaxial Lift Off technology that has been extended to the maximum number of epitaxial structures that can be grown on one wafer. The broader impact of this proposed activity includes the possibility to produce any structure compatible with MELO technology. This may include lower cost Hetero-Bipolar Transistor (HBT) devices that directly benefit from the transfer to more suitable thermally dissipative and electrically isolated substrates.