Photovoltaics on Transfer Printed III-V Virtual Substrates

We demonstrate a novel concept for III-V engineered substrate cost reduction that does not rely on chemical–mechanical polishing or low-throughput release layer etching. With the potential for significant reduction to III-V substrate cost, the details of this concept are provided, as well as a demonstration of III-V devices grown on a membrane removed from its source substrate and bonded to a non-native target handle. The GaAs solar cell on membrane one-sun and concentration AM1.5 efficiencies register 16.2% and 19.1%, respectively, prior to the application of anti-reflection coating. This is a discrepancy of 2% (one-sun) and 1.2% (concentration) absolute versus a nominally identical control GaAs device, indicating the capability for high performance at reduced cost.