New insights into the nanostructure of innovative thin film solar cells gained by positron annihilation spectroscopy

New insights into the nanostructure of innovative thin film solar cells gained by positron annihilation spectroscopy

Recent studies showed that positron annihilation methods can provide key insights into the nanostructure and electronic structure of thin film solar cells. In this study, positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) is applied to investigate CdSe quantum dot (QD) light absorbing layers, providing evidence of positron trapping at the surfaces of the QDs. This enables one to monitor their s...

Admittance spectroscopy of thin film solar cells

A short overview on thin film solar cells is given, and the complexity of their electronic structure is illustrated. Several physical mechanisms that give rise to a decay of the capacitance from a low-frequency value CLF to a high-frequency value CHF are discussed. A key of interpreting features in measured admittance spectroscopy (AS) spectra is a careful analysis of CLF and CHF and the temper...

Innovative Elastic Thin-Film Solar Cell Structures

Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy

Positron annihilation spectroscopy is nowadays well recognised as a powerful tool of microstructure investigations of condensed matter. An overview of the method aimed for users from other fields is given and supplemented with several examples of applications.

High-Quality Microcrystalline Silicon for Efficient Thin-Film Solar Cells : Insights into Plasma and Material Properties

This thesis investigates the link between the plasma deposition conditions and microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) material quality for thin-film silicon photovoltaic applications. The role of interfaces and the μc-Si:H material quality on the device performance are analyzed in detail. The low absorption of μc-Si:H at long wavelengths requires the deposition of absorber layers with thicknesses o...