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3D Imaging of Selenium and Chlorine Distributions in Highly Efficient Selenium-Graded Cadmium Telluride Solar Cells.pdf (1.91 MB)

Three-dimensional imaging of selenium and chlorine distributions in highly efficient selenium-graded cadmium telluride solar cells

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-02-06, 08:52 authored by Tom Fiducia, Kexue Li, Amit H Munshi, Kurt Barth, Walajabad S Sampath, Chris RM Grovenor, Michael WallsMichael Walls
Thin-film solar modules based on cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology currently produce the world's lowest cost solar electricity. However, the best CdTe modules now contain a cadmium selenium telluride (CST) alloy at the front of the absorber layer. Despite this, research characterizing the behavior of selenium in alloyed CdTe devices is currently very limited. Here we employ advanced secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements to map the three-dimensional distribution of selenium in a graded CST/CdTe device for the first time. We find significant interdiffusion of selenium between the CST and CdTe layers in the cell, primarily out of the CST grain boundaries and up into the CdTe grain boundaries and grain fringes above. This results in significant lateral variations in selenium concentrations across grains and hence also lateral fields, which we estimate using the measured selenium concentrations.

Funding

EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in New and Sustainable PV : EP/L01551X/1

OTH Supersolar hub - Extension : EP/P02484X/1

EPSRC SUPERGEN SuperSolar Hub (EP/J017361/1)

NSF AIR, NSF I/UCRC, and DOE SIPS programmes and NSF award 1540007, NSF PFI:AIR-RA programme 1538733, and DOE SIPS award DE-EE0008177

EPSRC Grant M018237/1

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

Volume

10

Issue

2

Pages

685 - 689

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© IEEE

Publisher statement

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Acceptance date

2019-11-16

Publication date

2019-12-09

Copyright date

2019

ISSN

2156-3381

eISSN

2156-3403

Language

  • en

Depositor

Tom Fiducia. Deposit date: 30 January 2020

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