Effect of CdS thickness on CdS/CdTe quantum efficiency [solar cells]

Author

Granata, J.E. ; Sites, J.R. ; Contreras-Puente, G. ; Compaan, A.D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

13-17 May 1996

Firstpage

853

Lastpage

856

Abstract

A significant photocurrent loss in CdS/CdTe solar cells is due to window-layer CdS bandgap absorption below 520 nm. This work evaluates a coordinated effort by six laboratories to optimize the CdS thickness to increase CdTe cell performance, Quantum efficiency is used to compare CdS/CdTe solar cell photocurrent performance for various CdS window-layer thicknesses in the range of 400 Å to 2500 Å. The contribution to J_sc from wavelengths below 520 nm, corresponding to the CdS bandgap, shows a photocurrent difference of roughly 5 mA/cm² between the practical thick and thin CdS layer thicknesses, corresponding to a possible efficiency difference between 12% and 15%. Additionally, there appears to be a process-dependent lower limit to the minimum CdS thickness for good-junction cells

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; cadmium compounds; energy gap; p-n heterojunctions; semiconductor device testing; short-circuit currents; solar cells; 12 to 15 percent; 400 to 2500 angstrom; CdS-CdTe; CdS-CdTe solar cells; bandgap absorption; photocurrent loss; photocurrent performance improvement; quantum efficiency; semiconductor; window-layer thickness; Absorption; Cascading style sheets; Chemical vapor deposition; Glass; Laboratories; Photoconductivity; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1996., Conference Record of the Twenty Fifth IEEE

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3166-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1996.564262

Filename

564262