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- All Subjects: Simulation
Description
In recent years, there has been increased interest in the Indium Gallium Nitride (InGaN) material system for photovoltaic (PV) applications. The InGaN alloy system has demonstrated high performance for high frequency power devices, as well as for optical light emitters. This material system is also promising for photovoltaic applications due to broad range of bandgaps of InxGa1-xN alloys from 0.65 eV (InN) to 3.42 eV (GaN), which covers most of the electromagnetic spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths. InGaN’s high absorption coefficient, radiation resistance and thermal stability (operating with temperature > 450 ℃) makes it a suitable PV candidate for hybrid concentrating solar thermal systems as well as other high temperature applications. This work proposed a high efficiency InGaN-based 2J tandem cell for high temperature (450 ℃) and concentration (200 X) hybrid concentrated solar thermal (CSP) application via numerical simulation. In order to address the polarization and band-offset issues for GaN/InGaN hetero-solar cells, band-engineering techniques are adopted and a simple interlayer is proposed at the hetero-interface rather than an Indium composition grading layer which is not practical in fabrication. The base absorber thickness and doping has been optimized for 1J cell performance and current matching has been achieved for 2J tandem cell design. The simulations also suggest that the issue of crystalline quality (i.e. short SRH lifetime) of the nitride material system to date is a crucial factor limiting the performance of the designed 2J cell at high temperature. Three pathways to achieve ~25% efficiency have been proposed under 450 ℃ and 200 X. An anti-reflection coating (ARC) for the InGaN solar cell optical management has been designed. Finally, effective mobility model for quantum well solar cells has been developed for efficient quasi-bulk simulation.
ContributorsFang, Yi, Ph.D (Author) / Vasileska, Dragica (Thesis advisor) / Goodnick, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Ponce, Fernando (Committee member) / Nemanich, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
4H-SiC has been widely used in many applications. All of these benefit from its extremely high critical electric field and good electron mobility. For example, 4H-SiC possesses a critical field ten times higher than that of Si, which allows high-voltage blocking layers composed of 4H-SiC to be approximately a tenth the thickness of a comparable Si device. This, in turn, reduces the device on-resistance and power losses while maintaining the same high blocking capability.
Unfortunately, commercial TCAD tools like Sentaurus and Silvaco Atlas are based on the effective mass approximation, while most 4H-SiC devices are not operated under low electric field, so the parabolic-like band approximation does not hold anymore. Hence, to get more accurate and reliable simulation results, full-band analysis is needed. The first step in the development of a full-band device simulator is the calculation of the band structure. In this work, the empirical pseudopotential method (EPM) is adopted. The next task in the sequence is the calculation of the scattering rates. Acoustic, non-polar optical phonon, polar optical phonon and Coulomb scattering are considered. Coulomb scattering is treated in real space using the particle-particle-particle-mesh (P3M) approach. The third task is coupling the bulk full-band solver with a 3D Poisson equation solver to generate a full-band device simulator.
For proof-of-concept of the methodology adopted here, a 3D resistor is simulated first. From the resistor simulations, the low-field electron mobility dependence upon Coulomb scattering in 4H-SiC devices is extracted. The simulated mobility results agree very well with available experimental data. Next, a 3D VDMOS is simulated. The nature of the physical processes occurring in both steady-state and transient conditions are revealed for the two generations of 3D VDMOS devices being considered in the study.
Due to its comprehensive nature, the developed tool serves as a basis for future investigation of 4H-SiC power devices.
Unfortunately, commercial TCAD tools like Sentaurus and Silvaco Atlas are based on the effective mass approximation, while most 4H-SiC devices are not operated under low electric field, so the parabolic-like band approximation does not hold anymore. Hence, to get more accurate and reliable simulation results, full-band analysis is needed. The first step in the development of a full-band device simulator is the calculation of the band structure. In this work, the empirical pseudopotential method (EPM) is adopted. The next task in the sequence is the calculation of the scattering rates. Acoustic, non-polar optical phonon, polar optical phonon and Coulomb scattering are considered. Coulomb scattering is treated in real space using the particle-particle-particle-mesh (P3M) approach. The third task is coupling the bulk full-band solver with a 3D Poisson equation solver to generate a full-band device simulator.
For proof-of-concept of the methodology adopted here, a 3D resistor is simulated first. From the resistor simulations, the low-field electron mobility dependence upon Coulomb scattering in 4H-SiC devices is extracted. The simulated mobility results agree very well with available experimental data. Next, a 3D VDMOS is simulated. The nature of the physical processes occurring in both steady-state and transient conditions are revealed for the two generations of 3D VDMOS devices being considered in the study.
Due to its comprehensive nature, the developed tool serves as a basis for future investigation of 4H-SiC power devices.
ContributorsCheng, Chi-Yin (Author) / Vasileska, Dragica (Thesis advisor) / Goodnick, Stephen M (Thesis advisor) / Ponce, Fernando (Committee member) / Zhao, Yuji (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
In this project, we created a code that was able to simulate the dynamics of a three site Hubbard model ring connected to an infinite dissipative bath and driven by an electric field. We utilized the master equation approach, which will one day be able to be implemented efficiently on a quantum computer. For now we used classical computing to model one of the simplest nontrivial driven dissipative systems. This will serve as a verification of the master equation method and a baseline to test against when we are able to implement it on a quantum computer. For this report, we will mainly focus on classifying the DC component of the current around our ring. We notice several expected characteristics of this DC current including an inverse square tail at large values of the electric field and a linear response region at small values of the electric field.
ContributorsJohnson, Michael (Author) / Chamberlin, Ralph (Thesis director) / Ritchie, Barry (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05