A computational study on the energy bandgap engineering in performance enhancement of CdTe thin film solar cells

In this study, photovoltaic properties of CdTe thin film in the configuration of n-SnO2/n-CdS/p-CdTe/p-CdTe:Te/metal have been studied by numerical simulation software named Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structure (AMPS-1D). A modified structure for CdTe thin film solar cell has been proposed by numerical analysis with the insertion of a back contact buffer layer (CdTe:Te). This layer can serve as a barrier that will decelerate the copper diffusion in CdTe solar cell. Four estimated energy bandgap relations versus the Tellurium (Te) concentrations and the (CdTe: Te) layer thickness have been examined thoroughly during simulation. Correlation between energy bandgap with the CdTe thin film solar cell performance has also been established. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.