Impacts of Non-Ideal Back Contact on Capacitance Measurements in CdTe Solar Cells

Michael Miller, B. Edward Sartor, Aayush Nahar, Chungho Lee, Matthew Reese, Aaron Arehart

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

CdTe solar cells suffer from a non-ideal back contact which can strongly affect the equivalent circuit model and complicate capacitance measurements. Here, five different back contact materials are deposited on identical CdTe absorbers and their influence on capacitance measurements is characterized. A five-element equivalent circuit model is shown to represent a CdTe solar cell with a non-ideal back contact, and capacitance-frequency (C-f) measurements on each sample clearly show the influence of this contact. Capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements on each sample show the influence of frequency on measured capacitance. In the AlGaOx/Au sample, temperature dependent C-fs show the back barrier height to be 240 meV, and ongoing measurements will give a comparison of back barrier heights for all samples. This study provides insight into the efficacy of various back contacts and highlights potential errors in the interpretation of capacitance measurements due to the presence of the back contact.
Original languageAmerican English
Pages1644-1646
Number of pages3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024
Event2024 IEEE 52nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) - Seattle, Washington
Duration: 9 Jun 202414 Jun 2024

Conference

Conference2024 IEEE 52nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC)
CitySeattle, Washington
Period9/06/2414/06/24

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/CP-5K00-92705

Keywords

  • cadmium compounds
  • capacitance
  • capacitance measurement
  • capacitance-voltage characteristics
  • equivalent circuits
  • frequency measurement
  • II-VI semiconductor materials
  • integrated circuit modeling
  • photovoltaic cells
  • temperature measurement

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