Spectrally selective Al/AlN/Al/AlN tandem solar absorbers were deposited onto soda lime glass substrates using inline ac magnetron sputtering in a reactive atmosphere containing argon and nitrogen. To achieve a reproducible and homogenous deposition process, the deposition of multilayer Al/AlN/Al/AlN films under different process conditions was investigated. Two main variables, ac power and the speed of substrate movement in the chamber, were varied in the ranges of 1-10 kW and 10?47-31?4 mm s 21 respectively to obtain films with high absorption and low emittance. The effects of film thickness of different layers and deposition conditions on the optical performance of selective coatings were also studied. Structural features and surface morphology of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy analyses respectively. In the present study, tandem solar absorber films deposited onto glass substrate with optimised sputtering parameters can consistently achieve solar absorptance a of 0?864 and thermal emittance e of 0?03 at 80uC.

We have investigated an 850 nm GaAs/GaAlAs (001) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) structure using angle- and temperature-dependent surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS). The SPS measurements were performed as functions of angle of incidence (0° ≤ θ ≤ 60°) and temperature (25° C ≤ T ≤ 215° C) for both the metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) and wavelength-modulated MIS configurations. Angle-dependent reflectance (R) measurements have also been performed to illustrate the superior features of the SPS technique. The SPS spectra exhibit both the fundamental conduction to heavy-hole excitonic transition of quantum well and cavity mode (CM) plus a rich interference pattern related to the mirror stacks, whereas in the R spectra only the CM and interference features are clearly visible. The variations of SPS spectra as functions of incident angle and temperature enable exploration of light emission from the quantum well confined in a microcavity with relation to the Fabry–Pérot cavity mode. The results demonstrate considerable potential of SPS for the contactless and nondestructive characterization of VCSEL structures.