Propagation mechanism of reverse bias induced defects in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells

Partial shading of monolithically interconnected Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) modules can lead to the formation of reverse bias induced defects. These localized defects permanently reduce the output of the PV module. The formation and propagation mechanisms of these defects is studied. Understanding these mechanisms can help to prevent or mitigate...

Fast Processing of Sol-Gel TCO

TCOs are usually deposited using sputtering or chemical vapor deposition, which have a yield of typically 50-75%. The sol gel method does not need low pressure and can be done with a high precursor yield in the range of 90 – 100%. Sol gel enables also the TCO function as a planarization or texturisation layer. Major drawback and cost driver is...

Multi-Material Front Contact for 19% Thin Film Solar Cells

The trade-off between transmittance and conductivity of the front contact material poses abottleneck for thin film solar panels. Normally, the front contact material is a metal oxide and the optimal cell configuration and panel efficiency were determined for various band gap materials, representing Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS), CdTe and high band gap...

Efficiency loss prevention in monolithically integrated thin film solar cells by improved front contact

Modeling indicates a potential efficiency boost of 17% if thin-film solar panels are featured with a metallic grid. Variations of transparent conductive oxide sheet resistance, cell length, and grid dimensions are discussed. These parameters were optimized simultaneously to obtain the best result. Moreover, the power output as a function of...

Transmission electron microscopy on early-stage tin oxide film morphology grown by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition

Nucleation and morphology development during the early stages of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes are believed to be of major importance for the overall film properties. Here, the authors have investigated the nucleation of tin oxide films, comparing different tin precursors (tin tetrachloride (TTC) and monobutyl tin trichloride (MBTC))...

Improvement of transparent conducting materials by metallic grids on transparent conductive oxides

The trade-off between transparency and conductivity in transparent conductors used in optoelectronic devices is a major bottleneck towards higher device performances. Grid deposition on transparent conductive oxides was demonstrated using electrochemical deposition, which has the advantage of a high aspect ratio of 0.45 and the possibility to...

Improvement of transparent conducting materials by metallic grids on transparent conductive oxides

The trade-off between transparency and conductivity in transparent conductors used in optoelectronic devices is a major bottleneck towards higher device performances. Grid deposition on transparent conductive oxides was demonstrated using electrochemical deposition, which has the advantage of a high aspect ratio of 0.45 and the possibility to...

Atmospheric pressure CVD of SNO2 and ZNO:AL

Atmospheric pressure CVD (APCVD) is a highly cost effective method of depositing transparent conductive oxides (TCOs). In this work, insights in alcohol addition in the widely applied SnO2 process are discussed, including high resolution TEM images. Furthermore, the APCVD process of ZnO:Al was demonstrated on an industrial moving belt APCVD...

Low resistive trasparent conductors with metallic grids: Modeling and experiments

At present, transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are still superior in performance to most other transparent conductors. Results on opto-electronic modeling and design optimization of TCOs are presented using a monolithically integrated CIGS cell configuration as case. For various cell dimensions and TCO characteristics, the cell output was...

One year monitoring of 26 electric vehicles

The Dutch government regards electric driving as a very promising option to make our future automobility more sustainable, to strenghten the Dutch energy position and to give our economy a structural boost. Therefore, it was decided to gain experience of electric driving through field tests with the Dutch Government's Public Works Department....

The influence of methanol addition during the film growth of SnO 2 by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition

Undoped tin oxide (SnO2) thin films have been deposited in a stagnant point flow chemical vapor deposition reactor from a water/tin tetrachloride mixture. By adding methanol during the deposition process the film electrical properties change significantly: ten times more conductive SnO 2 films are obtained, with remarkably high mobility values...

Electroplating of electrical circuitry on optoelectronic windows for thin film solar cells on foil

In many flexible electronic devices transparent conductive oxide (TCO) window layers are used for current collection. The trade-off between the electrical resistance and optical transmission of TCOs results in power losses. Increasing the electrical conductivity by combining metallic grids with TCOs enables reduction of these power losses....

Electrochemical deposition of TCO's