Quantification of losses in thin-film CdS/CdTe solar cells

Quantification of solar cell losses can identify promising pathways for further cell improvements. This paper expands earlier work and applies it specifically to CdS/CdTe cells. For the analysis we have defined four cells: The Target cell is one that should be possible with current industrial processes. The Production cell is typical of today's production. The Record cell has the highest efficiency (16.5%) reported to date. The Ideal cell has the highest theoretical performance for CdTe. The systematic technique of separating losses, referred to as third level metrics, breaks current, voltage, and fill-factor losses down into their individual loss mechanisms. The losses are expressed both as the deficiency in the specific parameter and as the impact on cell efficiency. The latter allows clear identification of the most significant losses.