8 MeV electron irradiation studies on electrical characteristics of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells

Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells are gaining considerable interest due to their high optical absorption coefficient and adjustable band gap, which enables them to achieve high conversion efficiency and also present many promising applications in space power systems. In this paper we report the results of the effect of temperature and 8 MeV electron irradiation on the electrical characteristics of ZnO/CdS/Cu(In,Ga)Se2/Mo polycrystalline thin-film solar cells under forward and reverse bias studied in the temperature range 270–315 K. The solar cells were subjected to 8 MeV electron irradiation from the Microtron accelerator and were exposed to graded doses of electrons up to 75 kGy. I–V characteristics of the cells under dark and AM 1.5 illumination condition were studied before and after the irradiation. Capacitance measurements were also carried out at various frequencies before and after irradiation. In the measured temperature range, the dark current contribution is due to the generation–recombination of the minority carriers in the depletion region. The ideality factor is found to decrease with increase in temperature. It seems that electron irradiation has not altered the dark current conduction mechanism significantly. The effect of electron irradiation on the solar cell parameters such as fill factor (FF), conversion efficiency (η), saturation current (Io), short circuit current (Isc), open circuit voltage (Voc), and ideality factor (n) was studied. They were found to be stable up to 75 kGy of electron dose as only small changes were observed in the solar cell parameters.