Determining interface properties limiting open-circuit voltage in heterojunction solar cells
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Applied Mathematics
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY (United States)
Development of new thin-film PV absorbers is often hindered by the search for an optimal heterojunction contact; an unoptimized contact may be mistaken for poor quality of the underlying absorber, making it difficult to assess the reasons for poor performance. Therefore, quantifying the loss in device efficiency and open-circuit voltage (VOC) as a result of the interface is a critical step in evaluating a new material. In the present work, we fabricate thin-film PV devices using cuprous oxide (Cu2O), with several different ¬n-type heterojunction contacts. Their current-voltage characteristics are measured over a range of temperatures and illumination intensities (JVTi). We quantify the loss in VOC due to the interface, and determine the effective energy gap at the interface. The effective interface gap measured by JVTi matches the gap measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, albeit with higher energy resolution and an order of magnitude faster. We discuss potential artifacts in JVTi measurements and areas where analytical models are insufficient. Applying JVTi to complete devices, rather than incomplete material stacks, suggests it can be a quick, accurate method to assess the loss due to unoptimized interface band offsets in thin-film PV devices.
- Research Organization:
- Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Next Generation of Materials by Design: Incorporating Metastability (CNGMD)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0007541; AC36-08GO28308; DMR-0819762; ECS-0335765
- OSTI ID:
- 1573369
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1361861; OSTI ID: 1580435
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 121, Issue 18; ISSN 0021-8979
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Exchange current density model for the contact-determined current-voltage behavior of solar cells
|
journal | June 2019 |
Numerical investigation on efficiency improvement of double layer antireflection coating AZO/buffer/Cu 2 O/CuO on back-surface fluorine-doped tin oxide heterostructure solar cells
|
journal | January 2019 |
Strongly Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance and Defect Physics of Air-Stable Bismuth Oxyiodide (BiOI)
|
text | January 2017 |
Similar Records
Crosscutting Recombination Metrology for Expediting VOC Engineering
Study of Passivation in the Gap Region Between Contacts of Interdigitated-Back-Contact Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: Simulation and Voltage-Modulated Laser-Beam-Induced-Current