Effect of hysteresis on measurements of thin-film cell performance

D. S. Albin; J. A. del Cueto

doi:10.1117/12.861175

19 August 2010 Effect of hysteresis on measurements of thin-film cell performance

D. S. Albin, J. A. del Cueto

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7773, Reliability of Photovoltaic Cells, Modules, Components, and Systems III; 77730N (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861175
Event: SPIE Solar Energy + Technology, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Transient or hysteresis effects in polycrystalline thin film CdS/CdTe cells are a function of pre-measurement voltage bias and whether Cu is introduced as an intentional dopant during back contact fabrication. When Cu is added, the current-density (J) vs. voltage (V) measurements performed in a reverse-to-forward voltage direction will yield higher open-circuit voltage (V_oc), up to 10 mV, and smaller short-circuit current density (J_sc), by up to 2 mA/cm², relative to scanning voltage in a forward-to-reverse direction. The variation at the maximum power point, P_max, is however small. The resulting variation in FF can be as large as 3%. When Cu is not added, hysteresis in both V_oc and J_sc is negligible however Pmax hysteresis is considerably greater. This behavior corroborates observed changes in depletion width, W_d, derived from capacitance (C) vs voltage (V) scans. Measured values of W_d are always smaller in reverse-to-forward voltage scans, and conversely, larger in the forward-to-reverse voltage direction. Transient ion drift (TID) measurements performed on Cu-containing cells do not show ionic behavior suggesting that capacitance transients are more likely due to electronic capture-emission processes. J-V curve simulation using Pspice shows that increased transient capacitance during light-soak stress at 100 °C correlates with increased space-charge recombination. Voltagedependent collection however was not observed to increase with stress in these cells.

Citation Download Citation

D. S. Albin and J. A. del Cueto "Effect of hysteresis on measurements of thin-film cell performance", Proc. SPIE 7773, Reliability of Photovoltaic Cells, Modules, Components, and Systems III, 77730N (19 August 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861175

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