Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy characterization of cadmium telluride solar cells

The use of steady-state photoluminescence spectroscopy as a contactless characterization tool, suitable for inline 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.