Recombination-induced voltage-dependent photocurrent collection loss in CdTe thin film solar cell

Recently, the efficiency of CdTe thin film solar cell has been improved by using new type of window layer Mg_xZn_1-xO (MZO). However, it is hard to achieve such a high efficiency as expected. In this report a comparative study is carried out between the MZO/CdTe and CdS/CdTe solar cells to investigate the factors affecting the device performance of MZO/CdTe solar cells. The efficiency loss quantified by voltage-dependent photocurrent collection efficiency (η_C(V')) is 3.89% for MZO/CdTe and 1.53% for CdS/CdTe solar cells. The higher efficiency loss for the MZO/CdTe solar cell is induced by more severe carrier recombination at the MZO/CdTe p—n junction interface and in CdTe bulk region than that for the CdS/CdTe solar cell. Activation energy (E_a) of the reverse saturation current of the MZO/CdTe and CdS/CdTe solar cells are found to be 1.08 eV and 1.36 eV, respectively. These values indicate that for the CdS/CdTe solar cell the carrier recombination is dominated by bulk Shockley—Read—Hall (SRH) recombination and for the MZO/CdTe solar cell the carrier recombination is dominated by the p—n junction interface recombination. It is found that the tunneling-enhanced interface recombination is also involved in carrier recombination in the MZO/CdTe solar cell. This work demonstrates the poor device performance of the MZO/CdTe solar cell is induced by more severe interface and bulk recombination than that of the CdS/CdTe solar cell.