Optical modeling of graphene contacted CdTe solar cells

• The first time, an optical approach was introduced for modeling of graphene contacted CdTe devices.
• Graphene as transparent conductive oxide showed a lower loss in Jsc.
• Graphene as the back contact enhances the Jsc over 35 mA/cm2 by double side irradiation.

For the first time, an optical model is applied on CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells with graphene front or back contact. Graphene is highly conductive and is as thin as a single atom which reduces the light reflection and absorption, and thus enhances the light transmission to CdTe layer for a wide range of wavelengths including IR. Graphene as front electrode of CdTe devices led to loss in short circuit current density of 10% ΔJsc ≤ 15% compared to the conventional electrodes of TCO and ITO at CdS thickness of dCdS = 100 nm. In addition, all the multilayer graphene electrodes with 2, 4, and 7 graphene layers led to Jsc ≤ 20 mA/cm2. Therefore, we conclude that a single monolayer graphene with hexagonal carbon network reduces optical losses and enhances the carrier collection measured as Jsc. In another structure design, we applied the optical model to graphene back contacted CdS/CdTe device. This scheme allows double side irradiation of the cell which is expected to enhance the Jsc. We obtained 1∼6, 23, and 38 mA/cm2 for back, front and bifacial illumination of graphene contacted CdTe cell with CdS = 100 nm. The bifacial irradiated cell, to be efficient, requires an ultrathin CdTe film with dCdTe ≤ 1 μm. In this case, the junction electric field extends to the back region and collects out the generated carriers efficiently. This was modelled by absorptivity rather than transmission rate and optical losses. Since the literature suggest that ZnO can increase the graphene conductivity and enhance the Jsc, we performed our simulations for a graphene/ZnO electrode (ZnO = 100 nm) instead of a single graphene layer.