GaN films are grown on cone-shaped patterned sapphire substrates （CPSSs） by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, and the influence of the temperature during the middle stage of GaN growth on the threading dislocation （TD） density of GaN is investigated. High-resolution X-ray diffraction （XRD） and cathodeluminescence （CL） were used to characterize the GaN films. The XRD results showed that the edge-type dislocation density of GaN grown on CPSS is remarkably reduced compared to that of GaN grown on conventional sapphire substrates （CSSs）. Furthermore, when the growth temperature in the middle stage of GaN grown on CPSS decreases, the full width at half maximum of the asymmetry （102） plane of GaN is reduced. This reduction is attributed to the enhancement of vertical growth in the middle stage with a more triangular-like shape and the bending of TDs. The CL intensity spatial mapping results also showed the superior optical properties of GaN grown on CPSS to those of GaN on CSS, and that the density of dark spots of GaN grown on CPSS induced by nonradiative recombination is reduced when the growth temperature in the middle stage decreases.
In this paper, the enhanced performance of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well solar cells grown on patterned sapphire substrates （PSS） was demonstrated. The short-circuit current （Jsc） density of the solar cell grown on PSS showed an improvement of 60%, compared to that of solar cells grown on conventional sapphire substrate. The improved performance is primarily due to the reduction of edge dislocations and the increased light absorption path by the scattering from the textured surface of the PSS. It shows that the patterned sapphire technology can effectively alleviate the problem of high-density dislocations and low Jsc caused by thinner absorption layers of the InGaN based solar cell, and it is promising to improve the efficiency of the solar cell.
