Novel techniques for the optical characterization of photovoltaic materials and devices

By means of newly designed optical instrumentation, mainly based on the use of integrating spheres, the fundamental optical properties of photovoltaic materials and devices (solar cells, modules) have been investigated. Relevant results concerned the optical loss (reflectance) of devices and the transmittance of semitransparent materials, used in the window sheets, under both direct and diffuse light. All the developed techniques are non-destructive and allow the characterization of selected areas of the samples. The use, however, of automatic translation stages makes easy to perform an optical and, in some cases, electrical mapping of the entire sample.