Effect of MoS2 as a Buffer Layer on CdTe Photovoltaic Cell Through Numerical Simulation

Abstract

A thin film based Cadmium Telluride photovoltaic cell is becoming highly competitive in the electric power industry. The major problem with the CdTe photovoltaic cell is the large barrier height behind the rear contact surface that prevents the solar cell to reach notional efficiency of 32%. A buffer layer is added to get a better result in terms of efficiency by reducing the valence barrier height at the rear contact surface of the CdTe photovoltaic cell. This manuscript presents the numerical simulation and optimization of ITO/TiO2/CdS/CdTe/MoS2/Au original photovoltaic cell structure using SCAPS 1D software. Furthermore, the effect of CdTe thickness, defect density, and acceptor density of MoS2 layer is discussed. Simulation results show that with the optimization of layer and parameters of the photovoltaic cell, efficacy of the p hotovoltaic cell is quite improved. With optimized solar cell, efficiency is improved to 26.49%, Voc = 1.141 V, Jsc = 27.690 mA/cm2, FF = 83.80% as compared to basic CdTe model which has an efficiency of 21.69%.

CdTe Photovoltaics in Superstrate Geometry–Back-Contact Materials: A Review

“…The work successfully developed a solar cell with MoS 2 back contact, reaching a maximum PCE of 13.7%. The numerical modeling of the MoS 2 buffer layer for a CdTe solar cell was done by Singh et al…”

“…The work successfully developed a solar cell with MoS 2 back contact, reaching a maximum PCE of 13.7%. The numerical modeling of the MoS 2 buffer layer for a CdTe solar cell was done by Singh et al 138 Bastola et al studied the possibility of using Ni-doped iron pyrite as the back-contact buffer layer between Cu and Au. 139 The work manipulated the p-type properties of iron pyrite by doping with Ni.…”

Performance evaluation of 2D MoS2-based solar cells and realization of transparent ultra-thin devices

“…The theoretical investigations on MoS 2 based solar cells are reported by many researchers in literature [36][37][38][39][40]. For instance, Ali et al [41] demonstrated Al/ITO/TiO 2 /MoS 2 /In 2 Te 3 /Ni solar cell to attain an efficiency of 33.32%.…”