Determination of the internal series resistance of CIS and CIGS photovoltaic cell structures

A new method is described to determine the internal series resistance of thin film solar cells. The method involves illumination of a small area of the solar cell with light sufficiently intense to make the internal resistance easily observable. For the CIS and CIGS cells examined, specific internal resistances ranging between 7/spl times/10/sup -2/ and 3/spl times/10/sup -4/ /spl Omega/ cm/sup 2/ were obtained. Such remarkably low values confirm the ability of CIGS to function as a concentrator solar cell.