Indium is extensively used in LCD screens and solar cells. It is mainly produced as a byproduct during ore processing. With ever increasing demand for indium and most of the production being restricted to a few countries new sources for indium are needed. In Sweden, the westernmost Bergslagen is the only area, which is known to exhibit minerals with essential indium. The indium mineralisations at Långban, the Linbom prospect, which are studied in this bachelor’s thesis show several trends. The most notable is the copper indium trend seen in sphalerite. A likely substitution based on similar ionic radii and charges is Cu1++ In3+ ↔ 2Zn2+.Usually when cassiterite is associated with similar polymetalic indium bearing mineralisations as at Långban there is also high concentrations in cassiterite. This has previously not observed in Sweden, however during this project concentrations were indeed found in cassiterite.

In this project, a new type of InP solar cell was investigated. The main idea is that light is converted to electrical current in p-i-n photodiodes formed in thin InP semiconductor nanowires epitaxially grown on an InP substrate. Two different types of samples were investigated. In the first sample type (series C03), the substrate was used as a common p-type electrode, whereas a short p-segment was included in all nanowires for the second sample type (B07). Current – voltage (I-V) characteristics with and without illumination were measured, as well as spectrally resolved photocurrents with and without bias. The main conclusion is that the p-i-n devices showed good rectifying behavior with an onset in photocurrent that agrees with the corresponding energy band gap of InP. An interesting observation was that in series B07 (with included p-segments) the photocurrent was determined by the band gap of hexagonal Wurtzite crystal structure, whereas series C03 (without p-segments) displayed a photocurrent dominated by the InP substrate which has a Zincblende crystal structure. We found that the overall short-circuit current was ten as large for the latter sample, stressing the importance of the substrate as a source of photocurrent.

The effect of silicon doping on the strain in c-plane InN films grown on c-plane GaN by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy is investigated. Strain is measured by x-ray reciprocal space mapping and Raman spectroscopy. The silicon doping concentration of our sample is about 1018 cm-3 by Hall measurement. Relation between the strain and the silicon concentration is obtained. To understand the increase in tensile stress caused by Si doping is discussed in terms of a crystallite coalescence model.

Transparent thin film transistors fabricated at room temperature by radio frequency magnetron sputtering using indium oxide material system were proposed. The electrodes of the transparent thin film transistors were obtained by depositing indium oxide with 10% tim doping. Resistivity as low as 4¡Ñ10-4£[-cm at room temperature was achieved. The channel layers of the transparent thin film transistors were fabricated using pure indium oxide target in an Argon and oxygen environment. Resistivity larger than 10-5£[-cm was obtained with 60% oxygen partial pressure. Silicon nitride prepared by room temperature radio frequency sputtering were used for the gate dielectric layer with low leakage current. Environmental-safe lift-off processes were used to fabricated the electrodes, the isolation layer, and the channel layer. The transistor characteristics were obtained by standard I-V measurement. The on-off ratio of the 30£gm ¡Ñ 150£gm transparent thin film transistor is 100.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Diss. ETH No. 13547. / Summary in German and English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-110). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

The objective of this work is to develop methods to investigate the thermoelectric (TE) transport in semiconducting nanowires (NWs). The thermal conductivity of degenerately doped electrochemically-etched (EE) silicon NWs was measured to be lower than silicon NWs synthesized by a vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) method without showing a clear dependence on the NW diameter. The thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) at near room temperature obtained from the three measured TE properties on the same EE Si NW was found to be between 0.01 of a very rough NW and 0.08 of a relatively smooth NW, the latter of which is about four times higher than that reported for bulk p-type Si at the optimum doping concentration. In addition, the NW samples could be contaminated or oxidized during the device processing. Based on the TEM characterization, they have relatively thick oxide layer and small surface roughness, and are apparently different from the EE Si NWs that a Berkeley team reported. Typical rough NWs reported by the Berkeley team have thin oxide layer and are free of major structural defects. Hence, given the significant structural differences in the samples, it would be scientifically inappropriate to compare the transport properties obtained from the two studies. In addition, a five to ten fold reduction in thermal conductivity was observed in wurtzite InAs NWs compared to bulk InAs of zinc blend phase, and is mainly attributed to diffuse surface scattering of phonons. Moreover, InSb NWs have been synthesized at three different base pressures. The NWs were found to be zinc-blende structure with <110> growth direction. The ZT of the two NWs is about 10 times lower than the bulk values mainly because of the much higher doping levels in NWs than the bulk as well as mobility suppression in the NWs. The ZT of one NW grown at a high vacuum base pressure is higher than another NW grown at low vacuum. These results show that it is necessary to better control the impurity doping in order to increase the ZT of the InSb NWs. / text

Tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) has been widely used for various optoelectronic devices such as display panels, light-emitting diodes and solar cells due to its unique optical and electrical properties. Thin ITO films can be fabricated by a number of methods such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), laser ablation, dc sputtering, e-beam deposition, vapor phase deposition, electrochemical deposition and hydrothermal method. Apart from the conventional thin film form, one dimensional ITO nanorods or nanowires are attracting much research interest due to their high aspect ratio and large surface to volume ratio. For instance, a network made of ITO nanowires can exhibit high transparency (over 95 %) and high flexibility without losing its conducting property as reported recently. This network can be potentially used for flexible photovoltaic devices. In this study, ITO nanorods or nanowires were fabricated using the vapor deposition, dc sputtering and e-beam deposition. The use of short ITO nanorods (100 nm) on glass and commercial ITO substrates as bottom electrodes improving the charge collection of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells had been demonstrated. The morphology of the ITO nanostructures was studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The crystal structure and growth direction were studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED), respectively. Optical properties were examined using transmission and photoluminescence measurements. The performance of the organic solar cells was examined using the I-V characteristics and external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements. The growth mechanism of the ITO nanowires using different fabrication methods was discussed. The effects of the substrate temperature, oxygen content, choice of substrate and evaporation rate on the morphology, transmittance and sheet resistivity were investigated. When short ITO nanorods were incorporated into the bulk heterojunction organic solar cells, a significant improvement of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) was observed. The higher efficiency of the studied solar cells was attributed to the improved charge collection. / published_or_final_version / Physics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

A pulse-laser based time-resolved photocurrent (TRPC) and photoluminescence (TRPL) system with a programmable Boxcar integrator/averager system incorporated was implemented to investigate the optical properties and charge carrier dynamics in a GaInP/GaAs single-junction photovoltaic device for the purposes of understanding fundamental optoelectronic processes in the solar cell. The implementation of whole system was realized by integrating the instrument of a Boxcar averager system with a pulse laser source + spectroscopic facilities. The delay time control and data acquisition were organized by the software code. The effects of the hardware configurations and the software parameters on the performance of the system were particularly addressed for the optimization of measurement conditions and precisions. Two main functions of TRPC and TRPL with a wide time range were demonstrated for the system. The system was employed to measure temperature- and bias voltages-dependent TRPC and TRPL spectra of a GaInP/GaAs single-junction photovoltaic device. The spectral data show a lot of information about the transient dynamic behaviors of photogenerated charge carriers in the device, including both the rise and decay processes. Interestingly, the measured time-resolved photocurrent curves are characterized by a fast rising edge followed by a relatively slow decay process as the temperature increases. Relevant theoretical calculations and analysis to the experimental curves were also carried out to understand diffusion and transport processes of charge carriers inside the device. The results show that the variation in temperature and reverse biases results in the structural change in the space charge region of the P-N junction and therefore affects the rise and decay time constants of the time-resolved photocurrent. The TRPL spectral data give information of mid-way radiative recombination of charge carriers in the device. / published_or_final_version / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy