Title Doping with phosphorus reduces anion vacancy disorder in CdSeTe semiconductors enabling higher solar cell efficiency
Authors Kuciauskas, Darius ; Nardone, Marco ; Ščajev, Patrik ; Jiang, Chun-Sheng ; Lu, Dingyuan ; Farshchi, Rouin
DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-63589-7
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Is Part of Nature communications.. Springer Nature. 2025, vol. 16, iss. 1, art. no. 8378, p. [1-12].. eISSN 2041-1723
Abstract [eng] Doping is used in many pn junction devices, such as polycrystalline solar cells, to increase the strength of the junction field to assist charge carrier collection and thus partially mitigate nonradiative recombination losses. We demonstrate a different doping characteristic for inorganic solar cells: using dopants to reduce charge carrier trapping and electronic band tails. Alloying CdTe with Se to form CdSeTe semiconductor reduced recombination, but CdSeTe has more complex defect states which can limit further efficiency gains due to charge carrier trapping and trap-limited mobility. Doping CdSeTe with P (but not N, As, or Sb in this study) reduces band tails (Urbach energies) and lessens the impact of the near valence band trap states, with ambipolar mobilities improving to >50 cm2V−1s−1, fill factor increasing from 76% to 79%, and efficiencies increasing by 0.9% absolute. Simulations are used to show how such defect reduction improves performance in the radiative limit.
Published Springer Nature
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2025
CC license CC license description