Abstract
CdTe cell efficiencies have increased from 17% to 21% in the past three years and now rival polycrystalline Si [1]. Research is now targeting 25% to displace Si, attain costs less than 40 cents/W, and reach grid parity. Recent efficiency gains have come largely from greater photocurrent. There is still headroom to lower costs and improve performance by increasing open-circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor. Record-efficiency CdTe cells have been limited to Voc < 880 mV, whereas GaAs can attain Voc of 1.10 V with a slightly smaller bandgap [2,3]. To overcome this barrier, we seek to understand and increase lifetime and carrier concentration in CdTe. In polycrystalline structures, lifetime can be limited by interface and grain-boundary recombination, and attaining high carrier concentration is complicated by morphology.
Original language | American English |
---|---|
Number of pages | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 14 Dec 2015 |
Event | 42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015 - New Orleans, United States Duration: 14 Jun 2015 → 19 Jun 2015 |
Conference
Conference | 42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015 |
---|---|
Country/Territory | United States |
City | New Orleans |
Period | 14/06/15 → 19/06/15 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 IEEE.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5K00-63648
Keywords
- cadmium compounds
- carrier concentration CdTe
- charge-carrier lifetime
- photovoltaic cells
- solar cells
- tellurium
- thin films