A Novel Method for the Estimation of Surface Recombination Velocity of Polycrystalline CIGS Solar Cells

The surface recombination velocity of minority carriers at the grain boundaries severely affects the performance of the polycrystalline solar cells. In the present work, the effect of grain size and grain boundary recombination velocity on the short circuit photocurrent of polycrystalline copper indium gallium di‐selenide (CIGS) solar cell is estimated theoretically. The model has been used to determine the surface recombination velocity for CIGS using our own experimental data on carrier generation rate. A good agreement is found between theory and available experimental results.

Keywords:

• CIGS solar cells
• surface recombination velocity
• photovoltaics
• polycrystalline

Acknowledgments

Chhavi Bhatnagar acknowledges thanks to Prof. A. Yoshida, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering. T.U.T., Toyohashi, Japan for helpful discussions during her stay at Japan.