Speaker
Dr
Obi Kingsley Echendu
(Department of Physics, University of the Free State, Qwa qwa Campus, Private bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, 9866, South Africa)
Description
A comparative study of the performance of thin film glass/FTO/CdS/CdTe/Au solar cells has been carried out for solar cells fabricated with CdTe electrochemically grown using 2-electrode and 3-eletrode set-ups. Structural and optical characterization of the CdTe films prior to solar cell fabrication shows that both electrode set-ups produce CdTe with similar x-ray diffraction patterns and optical absorption properties. Current density-voltage characterization of the resulting un-optimized solar cells also show that CdTe from both electrode systems produced solar cells of comparable conversion efficiencies in the range (3.0 – 6.5)%. The open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density and fill factor for cells from both systems were in the range (410 – 630) mV, (15.2 – 31.8) mAcm-2 and (0.32 – 0.49) respectively. These results demonstrate that the 2-electrode electrodeposition is as good as the conventional 3-electrode counterpart in producing semiconductors without compromising their essential device qualities. This becomes important more so as the elimination of the relatively expensive reference electrode commonly used in 3-electrode set-up will go a long way to reducing the cost of producing thin film solar cells and other devices based on eletrodeposition technique.
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
No
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD, N/A)?
N/A
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
Yes
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
B. F. Dejene. dejeneBF@ufs.ac.za
University of the Free State
Primary author
Dr
Obi Kingsley Echendu
(Department of Physics, University of the Free State, Qwa qwa Campus, Private bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, 9866, South Africa)
Co-author
Prof.
Birhanu Francis Dejene
(Department of Physics, University of the Free State, Qwa qwa Campus, Private bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, 9866, South Africa)
