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Application of copper thiocyanate for high open‐circuit voltages of CdTe solar cells
Author(s) -
Paudel Naba R.,
Yan Yanfa
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.2660
Subject(s) - cadmium telluride photovoltaics , open circuit voltage , copper , materials science , band gap , sublimation (psychology) , optoelectronics , solar cell , energy conversion efficiency , conductivity , conduction band , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , electron , voltage , electrical engineering , metallurgy , psychology , chromatography , psychotherapist , engineering , physics , quantum mechanics
Abstract Copper thiocyanate (CuSCN) has proven to be a low‐cost, efficient hole‐transporting material for the emerging organic–inorganic perovskite solar cells. Herein, we report that CuSCN can also be applied to CdTe thin‐film solar cells to achieve high open‐circuit voltages ( V OC s). By optimizing the thickness of the thermally evaporated CuSCN films, CdTe cells fabricated by close space sublimation in the superstrate configuration have achieved V OC s as high as 872 mV, which is about 20–25 mV higher than the highest V OC for the reference cells using the standard Cu/Au back contacts. CuSCN is a wide bandgap p ‐type conductor with a conduction band higher than that of CdTe, leading to a conduction band offset that reflects electrons in CdTe, partially explaining the improved V OC s. However, due to the low conductivity of CuSCN, CdTe cells using CuSCN/Au back contacts exhibited slightly lower fill factors than the cells using Cu/Au back contacts. With optimized CdS:O window layers, the power conversion efficiency of the best CdTe cell, using CuSCN/Au back contact, is 14.7%: slightly lower than that of the best cell (15.2%) using Cu/Au back contact. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.