Radiative Efficiency and Charge‐Carrier Lifetimes and Diffusion Length in Polycrystalline CdSeTe Heterostructures

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Cadmium Telluride is the lowest-cost commercial photovoltaic technology, but CdTe solar cell efficiency is still limited by charge carrier recombination. To understand and reduce recombination losses, scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL, Golden, Colorado, USA) developed polycrystalline double heterostructures as model systems for thin film solar cells. Using spectroscopic and microscopic electro-optical characterization, researchers at NREL and Vilnius University (Lithuania) showed that heterostructures have high external radiative efficiency, which was attributed to near-microsecond charge carrier lifetimes and high mobilities. Results show that polycrystalline CdTe photovoltaic technology has overcome long-standing recombination lifetime limitation, which will enable higher voltages in solar cells. For further details see article number 1900606.