Towards understanding junction degradation in cadmium telluride solar cells

A degradation mechanism in cadmium telluride (CdTe/CdS) solar cells is investigated using time-dependent numerical modeling to simulate various temperature, bias, and illumination stress conditions. The physical mechanism is based on defect generation rates that are proportional to nonequilibrium charge carrier concentrations. It is found that a commonly observed degradation mode for CdTe/CdS solar cells can be reproduced only if defects are allowed to form in a narrow region of the absorber layer close to the CdTe/CdS junction. A key aspect of this junction degradation is that both mid-gap donor and shallow acceptor-type defects must be generated simultaneously in response to photo-excitation or applied bias. The numerical approach employed here can be extended to study other mechanisms for any photovoltaic technology.