The impact of minority carrier lifetime and carrier concentration on the efficiency of CIGS solar cell

Abstract

This paper deals with minority carrier lifetime and carrier concentration of Cu(In, Ga)Se <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> (CIGS)-based thin film solar cells with a ZnS(n)/CIGS(p) heterojunction structure. The structure is simulated in commercial numerical simulation and the impact of minority carrier lifetime in the CIGS absorber layer on the open circuit voltage, short circuit current density, fill factor and efficiency of the CIGS solar cell are investigated. The increase of minority carrier lifetime has also increased the CIGS solar cell performance. Similar effects are also observed at different carrier concentrations of CIGS layer. All these simulated results give a helpful indication for a practical fabrication process.