Quantum efficiency and bandgap analysis for combinatorial photovoltaics: Sorting activity of Cu-O compounds in all-oxide device libraries

Assaf Y. Anderson, Yaniv Bouhadana, Hannah Noa Barad, Benjamin Kupfer, Eli Rosh-Hodesh, Hagit Aviv, Yaakov R. Tischler, Sven Rühle, Arie Zaban

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

86 Scopus citations

Abstract

All-oxide-based photovoltaics (PVs) encompass the potential for extremely low cost solar cells, provided they can obtain an order of magnitude improvement in their power conversion efficiencies. To achieve this goal, we perform a combinatorial materials study of metal oxide based light absorbers, charge transporters, junctions between them, and PV devices. Here we report the development of a combinatorial internal quantum efficiency (IQE) method. IQE measures the efficiency associated with the charge separation and collection processes, and thus is a proxy for PV activity of materials once placed into devices, discarding optical properties that cause uncontrolled light harvesting. The IQE is supported by high-throughput techniques for bandgap fitting, composition analysis, and thickness mapping, which are also crucial parameters for the combinatorial investigation cycle of photovoltaics. As a model system we use a library of 169 solar cells with a varying thickness of sprayed titanium dioxide (TiO2) as the window layer, and covarying thickness and composition of binary compounds of copper oxides (Cu-O) as the light absorber, fabricated by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). The analysis on the combinatorial devices shows the correlation between compositions and bandgap, and their effect on PV activity within several device configurations. The analysis suggests that the presence of Cu4O3 plays a significant role in the PV activity of binary Cu-O compounds.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)53-65
Number of pages13
JournalACS Combinatorial Science
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Feb 2014

Keywords

  • continuous compositional spread
  • heterojunction
  • nanotechnology
  • photochemistry
  • photophysics
  • thin films

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