Advanced Characterization of Thin Film Solar Cells

Mowafak Al-Jassim is a senior research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and manages the Analytical Microscopy and Imaging Science group. His research interests include multiscale characterization of the structural, chemical, interfacial, electro-optical, and electrical properties of bulk and thin-film semiconductors by (scanning) transmission electron microscopy, cathodoluminescence, electron-beam-induced current, atomic force microscopy, and other techniques. His work has involved developing Si, III-V, and thin-film solar cells. He has published more than 500 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.Nancy Haegel is the director of the Materials Science Center in the Materials and Chemical Science and Technology Directorate at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), USA. Her research interests include imaging of electronic and energy transport and characterization of semiconductor materials and devices. Her awards include the NPS Schieffelin Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2004 APS Prize for Research at an Undergraduate Institution, a Humboldt Research Fellowship in Germany and the U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar at Hebrew University. She has authored some 125 publications.

• Chapter 1: Introduction - Motivation of polycrystalline thin-film solar cellsChapter 2: Patterns in the control of CdTe solar cell performanceChapter 3: Cu(In,Ga)Se2 and related materialsChapter 4: Perovskite solar cellsChapter 5: Photovoltaic device modeling: a multi-scale, multi-physics approachChapter 6: Luminescence and thermal imaging of thin-film photovoltaic materials, devices, and modulesChapter 7: Application of spatially resolved spectroscopy characterization techniques on Cu2ZnSnSe4 solar cellsChapter 8: Time-resolved photoluminescence characterization of polycrystalline thin-film solar cellsChapter 9: Fundamentals of electrical material and device spectroscopies applied to thin-film polycrystalline chalcogenide solar cellsChapter 10: Nanometer-scale characterization of thin-film solar cells by atomic force microscopy-based electrical probesChapter 11: STEM characterization of solar cellsChapter 12: Photoelectron spectroscopy methods in solar cell researchChapter 13: Time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry and atom probe tomographyChapter 14: Solid-state NMR characterization for PV applicationsChapter 15: Summary and outlook