We have developed a device based upon the concept of two-photon up-conversion to use a part of the IR photons otherwise lost by transparency in a GaAs cell. An ultra thin GaAs cell has been fabricated using the technique of epitaxial lift-off (ELO). This thin cell is placed on top of a 100 µ m thick vitroceramic doped with Yb3+ and Er3+. The two photon upconversion process involved here is based on sequential absorption and energy transfer of two IR photons from Yb3+ to Er3+, which then emit one photon in the green. This green light then produces a photoresponse in the GaAs cell. This cell coupled to the vitroceramic was lighted by an Ti-sapphire IR laser at 1.391 eV, a photon energy below the band gap of GaAs, with an input power able to reach ∼1 W. The GaAs cell photoresponse increases quadratically with the input excitation. For an input excitation of 1 W at 1.39 eV on a 0.039 cm2 substrate-free GaAs cell, the measured efficiency was 2.5%.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.