Highly efficient CdTe solar cell with a thin CIT current booster: theoretical insights

TL;DR

This paper models a CdTe solar cell with a thin CIT current booster, revealing that optimizing physical parameters can significantly enhance efficiency, achieving over 37%, and suggests potential for even higher efficiency with photon recycling techniques.

Contribution

The study provides a theoretical analysis of a CdTe solar cell with a CIT layer, highlighting the impact of physical parameters and demonstrating potential efficiency improvements with photon recycling.

Findings

Efficiency of 37.46% with optimized parameters

Photon recycling can boost efficiency to ~44.3%

Device performance is highly sensitive to CIT layer properties

Abstract

CdTe-based thin film solar cell has been modeled and enumerated with a thin CuInTe2 (CIT) current booster layer. CdTe-based n-CdS/p-CdTe/p+-CIT/p++-WSe2 heterojunction device has been evaluated for the highest performance. It is revealed that physical parameters such as thickness, doping, and defects of the CIT layer have a significant influence on the performance of the CdTe solar cell. The device shows an efficiency of 37.46% with an open circuit voltage, VOC of 1.102 V, short circuit current density, JSC of 38.50 mA/cm2, and fill factor, FF of 88.30%. The use of the photon recycling technique with a Bragg-reflector with 98% back and 95% front reflectance only provides an efficiency of ~44.3% with a current of 45.4 mA/cm2. These findings are very hopeful for the production of an efficient CdTe solar cells in the near future.