A Deep Insight into the Electronic Properties of CIGS Modules with Monolithic Interconnects Based on 2D Simulations with TCAD

Lorbada, Ricardo Vidal; Walter, Thomas; Marrón, D. Fuertes; Lavrenko, Tetiana; Muecke, Dennis

doi:10.3390/coatings9020128

Cited by 4 publications

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“…This Special Issue consists of ten fully refereed scientific publications: seven open access articles [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and three open access review articles [11][12][13]. The seven articles provide information on perovskite, SnS/SnS 2 , CdTe, CIGS, silicon and transparent conducting oxide (SnO 2 ) materials used in solar cell development.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This article focuses on a case study of the temperature-dependent properties of electroplated CdTe thin films. Lorbada et al [8], in their research article, provides a deep insight into the electronic properties of CIGS modules with monolithic interconnects. Chen et al [9] present their results on enhancement of the potential-induced degradation resistance of crystalline silicon solar cells via anti-reflection coatings deposited by industrial PECVD method.…”

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Special Issue: “Advanced Thin Film Materials for Photovoltaic Applications”

Dharmadasa

2020

Coatings

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Photovoltaic (PV) technology is rapidly entering the energy market, providing clean energy for sustainable development in society, reducing air pollution. In order to accelerate the use of PV solar energy, both an improvement in conversion efficiency and reduction in manufacturing cost should be carried out continuously in the future. This can be achieved by the use of advanced thin film materials produced by low-cost growth techniques in novel device architectures. This effort intends to provide the latest research results on thin film photovoltaic solar energy materials in one place. This Special Issue presents the growth and characterisation of several PV solar energy materials using low-cost techniques to utilise in new device structures after optimisation. This will therefore provide specialists in the field with useful references and new insights into the subject. It is hoped that this common platform will serve as a stepping-stone for further development of this highly important field.

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Special Issue: “Advanced Thin Film Materials for Photovoltaic Applications”

Dharmadasa

2020

Coatings

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“…Another path for the current is the P1 scribe filled with CIGS material between two adjacent Mo strips, which although highly resistive when compared to the perpendicular path of the current (the pn junction), it introduces a shunt in the module. The impact of this shunt was discussed in [Vidal Lorbada, 2019] and will be addressed also in this thesis.…”

Section: Performance Electrical Losses and Equivalent Circuits Of Mod...mentioning

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Characterization and simulation of CIGS thin-film solar cells and interconnects

Lorbada¹

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Prospects of photovoltaic solar energy have improved in the recent years, due to the aim of global actors to increase the ratio of green energy produced. In the market of photovoltaics, thin-film solar cells based on Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2 material, (the cells under study in this thesis do not include Sulphur, and the material is known in short as CIGS) are a well-established technology that conjugates the advantages of thin-film devices with abundant and non-toxic materials, in contrast with other thin-film technologies based on toxic cadmium and the somewhat scarce tellurium. Another promising characteristic of this technology is found in the recent achievements in efficiency that put CIGS devices on par with multi-crystalline silicon solar cells. However, this technology presents some issues regarding its performance that may disadvantage it with respect to the other well-stablished technologies. Although the efficiency of the best laboratory scale solar cell based on CIGS is now close to that of multi-crystalline Si, there is still room for improvement of absorber and interface properties; the efficiency of commercial modules is also still behind that of the best lab-scale device due to performance losses introduced by the interconnection between cells. Moreover, this material also suffers from a somewhat poorer stability against certain operation conditions that are typically found in PV installations such as light-soaking or reversebiasing of cells due to shading for instance. The most devastating condition is known as potential induced degradation, which affects the performance dramatically and might result in warranty breaching for the manufacturer, reducing the economic attractiveness of this technology.The poorer performance and stability of CIGS technology can only be addressed with a good understanding of the electronic properties of the devices. The aim of this work is to provide knowledge on certain issues that affect the performance and stability of CIGS solar cells. The first issue is the impact of the interconnection between cells on the performance of the device. The scribing process that divides the module in cells results in three trenches (named as P1, P2 and P3) with different purposes. The first trench (P1) separates the back-contact of two adjacent cells, the second trench (P2) connects the front contact of a cell with the back-contact of the next adjacent cell and the third trench (P3) separates the front contact of two adjacent cells. Nonetheless, the P1 trench is typically filled with absorber material (CIGS), which does not provide a perfect isolation and may result in a significant shunt. The impact of the P1 shunt is studied in this thesis with 2D simulations and the characterization of devices (I-V, imaging techniques and C-V) with interconnection, considering the properties of the absorber, and an equivalent circuit model, based on a Junction Field-Effect Transistor is proposed to represent the behavior of the P1 shunt. Metastable changes in the absorber (that are typical of CIGS devices...

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