Growth of resonant cavity quantum well light emitting diodes and two-junction solar cells by solid source molecular beam epitaxy

Monolithic resonant cavity light emitting diodes (RCLED's) for room tempera ture operation at 650-670 nm and 850-880 nm wavelengths and double-junction GaInP/GaAs solar cells have been designed and grown using a toxic-gas-free solid-source molecular beam epitaxy method. The presence of the microcavit y in RCLED's causes strong cavity enhancement, which can be utilized to mod ify natural spontaneous emission. These devices are shown to exhibit perfor mance characteristics that are better than those of conventional LED's in m any ways. They may be suitable for optical fibre communications and interco nnects where a relatively high speed, good fibre coupling efficiency, nearl y monochromatic spectrum, and long-term reliability ate desirable. The GaIn P/GaAs cascade cells also reported in this paper are state-of-the-art, exhi biting conversion efficiencies up to 23.2% at one-sun air-mass-zero illumin ation. With so high efficiency and good radiation resistance, the cascade s olar cells are potential candidates for solar power generation of satellite s. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.