Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells

Paul, Sanjoy; Grover, Sachit; Repins, Ingrid L.; Keyes, Brian M.; Contreras, Miguel A.; Ramanathan, Kannan; Noufi, Rommel; Zhao, Zhibo; Liao, Feng; Li, Jian V.

doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2819664

Title: Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells

Abstract

The open-circuit voltage (VOC) in a generic TCO/buffer/absorber/back-contact thin-film solar cell device is a key parameter in the recombination analysis. In particular, VOC is sensitively influenced by the interface recombination at the buffer/absorber front interface and at the absorber/back-contact interface. This paper reports the temperature, excitation light intensity, and wavelength-dependent open-circuit voltage analysis to separate and quantify recombination rates in solar cells at the front and back interfaces, in the depletion regions, and in the quasi-neutral region. The wavelength-dependent VOC analysis is exploited to extract the absorber/back-contact recombination coefficient. The experimentally observed results are verified using SCAPS-1D (one dimensional-a solar cell capacitance simulator) simulation.

Authors:

^[1]; Grover, Sachit ^[2];

^[3]; Keyes, Brian M. ^[3]; Contreras, Miguel A. ^[4]; Ramanathan, Kannan ^[5]; Noufi, Rommel ^[3]; Zhao, Zhibo ^[2]; Liao, Feng ^[2];

^[6]

Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States)
First Solar, Inc., Perrysburg, OH (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc., Thornton, CO (United States)
Stion Corp., San Jose, CA (United States)
National Cheng Kung Univ., Tainan City (Taiwan)

Publication Date:: Thu Apr 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018

Research Org.:: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

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

OSTI Identifier:: 1462336

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-72052
Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381

Publisher:: IEEE

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 14 SOLAR ENERGY; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; back-contact; interface; open-circuit voltage; photovoltaics; recombination; SCAPS-1D

Citation Formats


                    Paul, Sanjoy, Grover, Sachit, Repins, Ingrid L., Keyes, Brian M., Contreras, Miguel A., Ramanathan, Kannan, Noufi, Rommel, Zhao, Zhibo, Liao, Feng, and Li, Jian V. Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells.  United States: N. p., 2018. 
Web.  doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2819664.

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                    Paul, Sanjoy, Grover, Sachit, Repins, Ingrid L., Keyes, Brian M., Contreras, Miguel A., Ramanathan, Kannan, Noufi, Rommel, Zhao, Zhibo, Liao, Feng, & Li, Jian V. Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2819664

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                    Paul, Sanjoy, Grover, Sachit, Repins, Ingrid L., Keyes, Brian M., Contreras, Miguel A., Ramanathan, Kannan, Noufi, Rommel, Zhao, Zhibo, Liao, Feng, and Li, Jian V. Thu .  
"Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2819664.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1462336.

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@article{osti_1462336,

  title        = {Analysis of Back-Contact Interface Recombination in Thin-Film Solar Cells},

  author       = {Paul, Sanjoy and Grover, Sachit and Repins, Ingrid L. and Keyes, Brian M. and Contreras, Miguel A. and Ramanathan, Kannan and Noufi, Rommel and Zhao, Zhibo and Liao, Feng and Li, Jian V.},

  abstractNote = {The open-circuit voltage (VOC) in a generic TCO/buffer/absorber/back-contact thin-film solar cell device is a key parameter in the recombination analysis. In particular, VOC is sensitively influenced by the interface recombination at the buffer/absorber front interface and at the absorber/back-contact interface. This paper reports the temperature, excitation light intensity, and wavelength-dependent open-circuit voltage analysis to separate and quantify recombination rates in solar cells at the front and back interfaces, in the depletion regions, and in the quasi-neutral region. The wavelength-dependent VOC analysis is exploited to extract the absorber/back-contact recombination coefficient. The experimentally observed results are verified using SCAPS-1D (one dimensional-a solar cell capacitance simulator) simulation.},

  doi          = {10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2819664},

  journal      = {IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics},

  number       = 3,

  volume       = 8,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Thu Apr 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018},

  month        = {Thu Apr 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018}

}

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Works referencing / citing this record:

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Electronics, Vol. 7, Issue 11
DOI: 10.3390/electronics7110324

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