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Charge-carrier dynamics in polycrystalline thin-film CuInGaSe photovoltaic devices after pulsed laser excitation: Interface and space-charge region analysis

Journal of Applied Physics, ISSN: 1089-7550, Vol: 117, Issue: 18
2015
  • 15
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 36
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    15
    • Citation Indexes
      14
    • Policy Citations
      1
      • Policy Citation
        1
  • Captures
    36

Article Description

We used time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) spectroscopy to analyze time-domain and spectral-domain charge-carrier dynamics in CuInGaSe (CIGS) photovoltaic (PV) devices. This new approach allowed detailed characterization for the CIGS/CdS buffer interface and for the space-charge region. We find that dynamics at the interface is dominated by diffusion, where the diffusion rate is several times greater than the thermionic emission or interface recombination rate. In the space-charge region, the electric field of the pn junction has the largest effect on the carrier dynamics. Based on the minority-carrier (electron) drift-rate dependence on the electric field strength, we estimated drift mobility in compensated CuInGaSe (with x ≈ 0.3) as 22 ± 2 cm(Vs). Analysis developed in this study could be applied to evaluate interface and junction properties of PV and other electronic devices. For CIGS PV devices, TRPL spectroscopy could contribute to understanding effects due to absorber compositional grading, which is one of the focus areas in developing record-efficiency CIGS solar cells.

Bibliographic Details

Darius Kuciauskas; Jian V. Li; Ana Kanevce; Harvey Guthrey; Miguel Contreras; Joel Pankow; Pat Dippo; Kannan Ramanathan

AIP Publishing

Physics and Astronomy

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