Effects of Working Temperatures and Metal Back Contacts on the Efficiencies of CdS/CdTe Thin Film Solar Cells

Abstract

Device simulation is used to investigate the effects of metal back contacts on the performance of CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells at different working temperatures. The simulations were done for chemical and physical based deposition techniques. The working temperatures studied ranges from 300 to 600 K for copper, cobalt and platinum back contacts using standard SCAPS 3.3.03 version software. Thin film solar cells with platinum back contact of work function of 5.6 eV exhibited better efficiency 17.24% at working temperature 350 K wit chemical method and 18.54% at 300 K for physical method. Cobalt with metal work function of 5.0 eV ad 5.66% efficiency at working temperature 400 K with chemical method and 6.58% at working temperature 300 K for physical method. Copper with work function of 4.7 eV showed the least efficiencies of 0.81 % and 0.73 % for chemical and physical methods respectively at the same working temperature of 300 K. The right metal work function should be selected as back contact electrode and using back contact buffer is encourage to enhance the efficiency.