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Cu in CdTe Lab (2D Version)
2D diffusion-reaction simulator of Cu migration in polycrystaline CdTe solar cells with Grain Boundaries
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Abstract
Cu plays an important role in CdTe solar cell by forming back contact and dopants. Small amount of Cu partially diffused into the CdTe absorber layer results in increased hole density, and improved open circuit voltage (Voc). On the other hand, long term Cu migration in CdTe solar cells is related to device degradation [1]. Excess Cu creates recombination centers that significantly reduce the fill factor (FF) and Voc [2-4]. In the process level, high accumulation of the Cu near the back contact can be explained by the Cd vacancies generated in the etching process and can be seen as the Cu2Te contact layer [5,6]. Cu also diffuses into the CdTe layer and serves as both donors (Cui), acceptors (CuCd) and neutral defects (CuCd or CuCd-Cui complex) [7-10].
This tool (predicts2D) implements a diffusion-reaction model for Cu migration in CdTe polycrystalline solar cells that can be used to understand and potentially optimize Cu incorporation processes. predicts2D can also be used to understand long term reliability issues, specifically dark/light crossover and distortions in apparent quantum efficiency [2], related to defects in CdTe devices.
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Credits
Developed at ASU, First Solar, CSU, NREL
Sponsored by
This work was supported by the Department of Energy under award number DE-EE0006344.
This work was also partially supported by NSF under contract number ECCS-1542160.
References
D. Brinkman, D. Guo, R. Akis, C. Ringhofer, I. Sankin, T. Fang, and D. Vasileska, “Self-Consistent Simulation of CdTe Solar Cells With Active Defects”, J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 118, pp. , 035704-1 - 035704-11, July, 2015.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
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D. Brinkman, D. Guo, R. Akis, C. Ringhofer, I. Sankin, T. Fang, and D. Vasileska, “Self-Consistent Simulation of CdTe Solar Cells With Active Defects”, J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 118, pp. , 035704-1 - 035704-11, July, 2015.