Use of materials that contain higher levels of defects and contaminants can significantly reduce the cost of solar cells, but can be detrimental to performance. To resolve this trade-off, improved measurement techniques are needed.

This project aims to compare, understand and further develop techniques to more accurately identify the type and amount of efficiency-reducing contaminants in silicon solar cells and investigate the lifetime effects of contamination in order to minimise its impact. This will be done by testing identical materials with different techniques at UNSW, ANU, and the Fraunhofer Institute.

The project includes the establishment of a calibration standard library in both countries and involves characterisation using:
• time-resolved techniques at a purpose built set-up at UNSW to provide information on potential solar cell performance (as the current tools  cannot measure low lifetime materials)
• luminescence spectroscopy techniques at ANU’s Process and Characterisation Solar facility (supported by ASI) and the Fraunhofer Institute to reveal contamination type and concentration 

Combining both spectral information and fast decay information provides, for the first time, comprehensive and complementary data, which is critical for the development of theoretical models.

This project will accelerate the industry’s understanding of contaminants and defects and their impacts, and reduce photovoltaic manufacturing costs worldwide. There is potential for the resulting tool to be used as a prototype for later manufacturing and commercialisation.

Fact Sheet: Time and spectrally-resolved photoluminescence for silicon solar cell characterisation (PDF 350KB)