CdTe solar cells with a PCBM back contact

Author

Walkons, Curtis ; Guralnick, Brett ; McCandless, B. ; Birkmire, Robert

Author_Institution

Inst. of Energy Conversion, Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

8-13 June 2014

Firstpage

1567

Lastpage

1572

Abstract

PCBM is evaluated as a primary contact to CdTe due to its high valence band energy. PCBM films were characterized in terms of morphology, area coverage, thickness, electrical and optical properties, and used as a back contact for CdTe solar cells. PCBM solutions were developed by mixing PCBM with chloroform (CFM) and ethylenediamine (EDA) and deposited via spin coating. The performance of devices with PCBM:CFM and PCBM:EDA back contacts are compared to those with baseline CdTe devices with a Cu2Te/Ni contact. For PCBM cells, the back contact properties were varied with subsequent anneals of 60 °C, 180 °C, and 240 °C. The device performance however was low as J-V results reveal a blocking contact.

Keywords

annealing; cadmium compounds; solar cells; spin coating; CdTe; PCBM films; PCBM:CFM back contact; PCBM:EDA back contact; area coverage; back contact properties; blocking contact; chloroform; electrical properties; ethylenediamine; morphology; optical properties; solar cells; spin coating deposition; temperature 180 degC; temperature 240 degC; temperature 60 degC; thickness; Absorption; Glass; Heating; Indium tin oxide; Optical films; Optical variables measurement; Substrates; cadmium telluride; copper; current-voltage characteristics; organic semiconductors; photovoltaic cells;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2014.6925217

Filename

6925217