Near-field transport imaging applied to photovoltaic materials

Xiao, Chuanxiao; Jiang, Chun -Sheng; Moseley, John; Simon, John; Schulte, Kevin; Ptak, Aaron J.; Johnston, Steve; Gorman, Brian; Al-Jassim, Mowafak; Haegel, Nancy M.; Moutinho, Helio

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2017.05.056

Title: Near-field transport imaging applied to photovoltaic materials

Journal Article · Fri May 26 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Solar Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2017.05.056· OSTI ID:1364164

Xiao, Chuanxiao ^[1]; Jiang, Chun -Sheng ^[2]; Moseley, John ^[2]; Simon, John ^[2]; Schulte, Kevin ^[2]; Ptak, Aaron J. ^[2]; Johnston, Steve ^[2]; Gorman, Brian ^[3]; Al-Jassim, Mowafak ^[2]; Haegel, Nancy M. ^[2]; Moutinho, Helio ^[2]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

We developed and applied a new analytical technique - near-field transport imaging (NF-TI or simply TI) - to photovoltaic materials. Charge-carrier transport is an important factor in solar cell performance, and TI is an innovative approach that integrates a scanning electron microscope with a near-field scanning optical microscope, providing the possibility to study luminescence associated with recombination and transport with high spatial resolution. In this paper, we describe in detail the technical barriers we had to overcome to develop the technique for routine application and the data-fitting procedure used to calculate minority-carrier diffusion length values. The diffusion length measured by TI agrees well with the results calculated by time-resolved photoluminescence on well-controlled gallium arsenide (GaAs) thin-film samples. We report for the first time on measurements on thin-film cadmium telluride using this technique, including the determination of effective carrier diffusion length, as well as the first near-field imaging of the effect of a single localized defect on carrier transport and recombination in a GaAs heterostructure. Furthermore, by changing the scanning setup, we were able to demonstrate near-field cathodoluminescence (CL), and correlated the results with standard CL measurements. In conclusion, the TI technique shows great potential for mapping transport properties in solar cell materials with high spatial resolution.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1364164

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1413791

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-67811

Journal Information:: Solar Energy, Vol. 153, Issue C; ISSN 0038-092X

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 8 works

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References (19)

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A fully automated dual-tip scanning near-field optical microscope for localized optical excitation and detection in the visible and near-infrared Abbasirad, Najmeh; Berzins, Jonas; Kollin, Kenneth Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 90, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5084946	journal	May 2019
Cathodoluminescence for the 21st century: Learning more from light Coenen, T.; Haegel, N. M. Applied Physics Reviews, Vol. 4, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4985767	journal	September 2017
A fully automated dual-tip scanning near-field optical microscope for localized optical excitation and detection in the visible and near-infrared Abbasirad, Najmeh; Berzins, Jonas; Kollin, Kenneth arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2005.07193	text	January 2020
A New Fitting Method for Ambipolar Diffusion Length Extraction in Thin Film Structures Using Photoluminescence Measurement with Scanning Excitation Chu, Cheng-Hao; Mao, Ming-Hua; Lin, You-Ru Scientific Reports, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62093-w	journal	March 2020

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