雖然像砷化鎵這樣的化合物半導體在光伏電池和光電應用中與矽相比有很大的性能優勢，但這些優勢並不能超過生成這些材料的大型高質量層狀結構、並將它們轉移到柔性或透明基質上、用在如太陽能電池、夜視照相機和無線通信系統等設備中所涉及的高成本過程（所體現出的劣勢）。
然而現在，John Rogers及其團隊演示了一個新的製造方法，它能克服這一缺點。他們是在一個單一沉降序列中、在厚的、多層組合體中來生長GaAs和AlGaAs薄膜的，然後將各層薄膜釋放，通過印刷方式使其分布在異質基質上。.
這一策略對於大面積應用的技術潛力，通過如以玻璃為基質的場效應電晶體和以塑料為基質的光伏電池模塊等GaAs裝置的製造得到了演示。 （生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原文出處：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09054
GaAs photovoltaics and optoelectronics using releasable multilayer epitaxial assemblies
Jongseung Yoon1,5, Sungjin Jo1,4,5, Ik Su Chun2, Inhwa Jung1, Hoon-Sik Kim1, Matthew Meitl3, Etienne Menard3, Xiuling Li2, James J. Coleman2, Ungyu Paik4 & John A. Rogers1,2
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
Semprius, Inc., Durham, North Carolina 27713, USA
Division of Materials Science Engineering, WCU Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide (GaAs) provide advantages over silicon for many applications, owing to their direct bandgaps and high electron mobilities. Examples range from efficient photovoltaic devices1, 2 to radio-frequency electronics3, 4 and most forms of optoelectronics5, 6. However, growing large, high quality wafers of these materials, and intimately integrating them on silicon or amorphous substrates (such as glass or plastic) is expensive, which restricts their use. Here we describe materials and fabrication concepts that address many of these challenges, through the use of films of GaAs or AlGaAs grown in thick, multilayer epitaxial assemblies, then separated from each other and distributed on foreign substrates by printing. This method yields large quantities of high quality semiconductor material capable of device integration in large area formats, in a manner that also allows the wafer to be reused for additional growths. We demonstrate some capabilities of this approach with three different applications: GaAs-based metal semiconductor field effect transistors and logic gates on plates of glass, near-infrared imaging devices on wafers of silicon, and photovoltaic modules on sheets of plastic. These results illustrate the implementation of compound semiconductors such as GaAs in applications whose cost structures, formats, area coverages or modes of use are incompatible with conventional growth or integration strategies.