Modeling of current-voltage characteristics of high-efficiency kesterite solar cells

Abstract

Article Modeling of current-voltage characteristics of high-efficiency kesterite solar cells Graphical abstract Highlights • State-of-the-art kesterite solar cells closely follow single diode formalism • Dark and light reconciliation attests close-to-ideal current-voltage behavior • Defective kesterite layer hypothesized as main open-circuit voltage-limiting factor • Carrier trapping via shallow states greatly contributes to shunt currents Correspondence romain.scaffidi@imec.be In brief Kesterite-based solar cells do not typically show close agreement with the idealistic single diode model. Scaffidi et al. demonstrate that the optoelectronic quality enhancements in recent solution processing baselines for kesterite thin films lead to a closer-to-ideal behavior, remarkably reconciling dark and light responses. Through robust device modeling, the dominant source of losses in the device is identified as a defect-rich layer restraining its voltage output, while light is also shed on the mechanism responsible for leakage currents.