Julie registered as a PhD student at the University of Montpellier and will carry out the majority of her research in the IES lab, working on the development of III-Sb templates and III-Sb solar cells and their integration onto Si. The research will involve band structure calculations, molecular-beam epitaxy growth and material characterization, as well as device fabrication and characterization. Record efficiency CPV solar cells are currently obtained with multi-junction cells grown on expensive Ge substrates or assembled by complex wafer bonding. However, high mechanical strength, high heat conductivity, nontoxicity, abundance and low cost are very important properties which favour silicon as a semiconductor material. Work is thus being carried-out in order to explore the possibility to combine III–V cells and silicon, with dual junction cells as test vehicles. III-Sbs exhibiting suitable band-gap combinations for solar cell, we will first explore GaSb-based multi-junction solar cells. In addition, III-Sbs exhibit a particular strain-relaxation when grown on Si which calls for investigating the realization of III-Sb/Si tandem cells. Finally, III-Sb/Si buffer layers grown at UM will be used as pseudo-substrates for the overgrowth of InP-based high-efficiency solar cells by III-V LAB.

She will join the "Mid-IR Optodevices" group (nanoMIR) in the Institut d’Electronique et des Systèmes and will be supervised by Prof Eric Tournié. She will work closely with other PROMIS researchers at III-V lab, Tyndall-UCC, and U. Cadiz with a number of secondment visits to these partners.

Julie is originally from Reunion Island, a French island located east of Madagascar. She completed her BSc in Engineering in Europe (Paris, Brest and Barcelona) and her MASc in Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo (Canada) in the Molecular Beam Epitaxy laboratory of prof. Z.R. Wasilewski. Her thesis work focused on epitaxial growth of Al/Si and Al/GaAs heterostructures and their characterization for applications in quantum computing, photonics or single photon detection.

As part of the PROMIS network, she will undertake the design, MBE growth and characterization of III-Sb heterostructures for CPV solar cells, as well as their integration onto Si substrates. She will also investigate InP-lattice-matched III-V/Si templates for III-As tandem solar cells.

Mon 21 December 2015