The Effects of Hydrogen Iodide Back Surface Treatment on CdTe Solar Cells
Abstract
An appropriate electrical back contact in CdTe solar cells is crucial to achieving high power conversion efficiency. In this work, we develop a facile back surface treatment method for CdTe solar cells using hydroiodic acid (HI) and investigate the effects of HI etching on the CdTe surfaces. The electrical properties of the CdTe absorber and interfaces are characterized by current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, admittance spectroscopy, and complex capacitance spectroscopy measurements. Here, the HI-etched devices show slightly higher apparent carrier concentrations than the control devices, suggesting an increased copper doping in the CdTe absorber. The potential barrier height of the back contact is reduced from 0.430 to 0.368 eV after the HI-treatment, accompanied by reduced contact resistance and carrier recombination. Additionally, the HI-treatment eliminates a defect signature at 0.409 eV. All of these HI-treatment effects lead to improved power conversion efficiency of CdTe solar cells through enhancement of the fill factor, the short circuit current, and open circuit voltage in order of significance.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[3]
- Univ. of Toledo, Toledo, OH (United States); Tikrit Univ., Salahuddin (Iraq)
- Univ. of Toledo, Toledo, OH (United States); Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan (China)
- Univ. of Toledo, Toledo, OH (United States)
- National Cheng Kung University, Tainan (Taiwan); Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1580432
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1490108
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0007541; DE‐EE0007541
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Solar RRL
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2367-198X
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; admittance spectroscopy; CdTe solar cells; carrier density profiling; complex capacitance spectroscopy; HI etching
Citation Formats
Awni, Rasha A., Li, Deng -Bing, Grice, Corey R., Song, Zhaoning, Razooqi, Mohammed A., Phillips, Adam B., Bista, Sandip Singh, Roland, Paul J., Alfadhili, Fadhil K., Ellingson, Randy J., Heben, Michael J., Li, Jian V., and Yan, Yanfa. The Effects of Hydrogen Iodide Back Surface Treatment on CdTe Solar Cells. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1002/solr.201800304.
Awni, Rasha A., Li, Deng -Bing, Grice, Corey R., Song, Zhaoning, Razooqi, Mohammed A., Phillips, Adam B., Bista, Sandip Singh, Roland, Paul J., Alfadhili, Fadhil K., Ellingson, Randy J., Heben, Michael J., Li, Jian V., & Yan, Yanfa. The Effects of Hydrogen Iodide Back Surface Treatment on CdTe Solar Cells. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/solr.201800304
Awni, Rasha A., Li, Deng -Bing, Grice, Corey R., Song, Zhaoning, Razooqi, Mohammed A., Phillips, Adam B., Bista, Sandip Singh, Roland, Paul J., Alfadhili, Fadhil K., Ellingson, Randy J., Heben, Michael J., Li, Jian V., and Yan, Yanfa. Tue .
"The Effects of Hydrogen Iodide Back Surface Treatment on CdTe Solar Cells". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/solr.201800304. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1580432.
@article{osti_1580432,
title = {The Effects of Hydrogen Iodide Back Surface Treatment on CdTe Solar Cells},
author = {Awni, Rasha A. and Li, Deng -Bing and Grice, Corey R. and Song, Zhaoning and Razooqi, Mohammed A. and Phillips, Adam B. and Bista, Sandip Singh and Roland, Paul J. and Alfadhili, Fadhil K. and Ellingson, Randy J. and Heben, Michael J. and Li, Jian V. and Yan, Yanfa},
abstractNote = {An appropriate electrical back contact in CdTe solar cells is crucial to achieving high power conversion efficiency. In this work, we develop a facile back surface treatment method for CdTe solar cells using hydroiodic acid (HI) and investigate the effects of HI etching on the CdTe surfaces. The electrical properties of the CdTe absorber and interfaces are characterized by current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, admittance spectroscopy, and complex capacitance spectroscopy measurements. Here, the HI-etched devices show slightly higher apparent carrier concentrations than the control devices, suggesting an increased copper doping in the CdTe absorber. The potential barrier height of the back contact is reduced from 0.430 to 0.368 eV after the HI-treatment, accompanied by reduced contact resistance and carrier recombination. Additionally, the HI-treatment eliminates a defect signature at 0.409 eV. All of these HI-treatment effects lead to improved power conversion efficiency of CdTe solar cells through enhancement of the fill factor, the short circuit current, and open circuit voltage in order of significance.},
doi = {10.1002/solr.201800304},
journal = {Solar RRL},
number = 3,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Tue Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
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