The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Optimization of the front end of CDTE solar cells
Author:	Chen, Yunfei
View Online:	njit-etd2017-124 (xii, 96 pages ~ 2.2 MB pdf)
Department:	Committee for the Interdisciplinary Program in Materials Science and Engineering
Degree:	Doctor of Philosophy
Program:	Materials Science and Engineering
Document Type:	Dissertation
Advisory Committee:	Chin, Ken K. (Committee chair) Delahoy, Alan E. (Committee member) Ravindra, N. M. (Committee member) Ko, Dong Kyun (Committee member) Yan, Yong (Committee member)
Date:	2017-12
Keywords:	Front end Window layer TCO Thickness Electron affinity Doping concentration
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The front end of CdTe solar cells consists of two layers: a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer and a window layer. New wider band gap materials, ZnMgO are being used to replace CdS as the window layer for the purpose of removing blue loss. For ZnMgO, three important parameters, including the atomic Mg content (x), thickness (t), and doping concentration (n) can play important roles on the performance of CdTe solar cells. In this dissertation, systematic simulation, by solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS), and experiments are used to investigate the influences of these parameters on the performance of CdTe solar cells. The optimized parameters of the window layer are found as follows: 10% atomic Mg content to adjust the value of conduction band offset at 0.3 eV. 40 nm thickness with 1018 cm-3 doping concentration to form an n+-p junction structure with the p-type CdTe absorber. Besides, the optimized thickness of different types of TCO is also theoretical calculated. Some novel ideas have been proposed and discussed, but may not be able to enhance the performance of CdTe solar cells.