Photoluminescence Excitation Spectroscopy Characterization Of Cadmium Telluride Solar Cells

The use of steady-state photoluminescence spectroscopy as a contactless characterization tool, suitable for in-line optical characterization, has been previously demonstrated for high efficiency solar cells such as GaAs. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of PLE characterization on a thin film CdS/CdTe np heterojunction solar cell, and compare the results to measured EQE and I-V data. In contrast to previous work on high-quality GaAs, the PLE and EQE spectra do not match closely here. We still find, however, that reliable material parameters can be extracted from the PLE measurements. We also provide a physical explanation of the limits defining the cases when the PLE and EQE spectra may be expected to match.