Effect of the Geometrical Structure Of the Front Contact Probe on Series Resistance of CdTe/CdS Solar Cells

The impact of front contact probe geometry in a CdTe/CdS solar cell on the photovoltaic performance is presented in this study. A 5 × 5 mm^2 cell was fabricated prior to revealing the front contact surrounding it by removing both CdTe and CdS layers. Gold was evaporated on the revealed front contact to create and test five different contact configurations. In addition, each configuration was investigated at four different distances from the edges of the cell itself so that the effect of distance between the probes could be studied. It was found that using metal configurations in the front contact reduced the series resistance of the device more than using a conventional point probe. The effect of such configurations on the series resistance measured under dark conditions is also presented in this paper.