Accurate determination of interface trap state parameters by admittance spectroscopy in the presence of a Schottky barrier contact: Application to ZnO-based solar cells

Abstract

This work shows that when a Schottky barrier is present in a photovoltaic device, such as in a device with an ITO/ZnO contact, equivalent circuit analysis must be performed with admittance spectroscopy to accurately determine the pn junction interface recombination parameters (i.e., capture cross section and density of trap states). Without equivalent circuit analysis, a Schottky barrier can produce an error of similar to 4-orders of magnitude in the capture cross section and similar to 50% error in the measured density of trap states. Using a solution processed ZnO/Cu2O photovoltaic test system, we apply our analysis to clearly separate the contributions of interface states at the pn junction from the Schottky barrier at the ITO/ZnO contact so that the interface state recombination parameters can be accurately characterized. This work is widely applicable to the multitude of photovoltaic devices, which use ZnO adjacent to ITO.