Deposition Methods and Properties of Polycrystalline CdS Thin Films

CdS thin film was used as a suitable window layer for CdS/Cd Te solar cell, and the properties of CdS thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition（PLD）, chemical bath deposition（CBD） and magnetron sputtering（MS） were reported. The experimental results show that the transmittances of PLD-Cd S thin films are about 85% and the band gaps are about 2.38-2.42 e V. SEM results show that the surface of PLD-Cd S thin film is much more compact and uniform. PLD is more suitable to prepare the Cd S thin films than CBD and MS. Based on the thorough study, by using totally PLD technique, the FTO/PLD-Cd S（150 nm）/CSS-Cd Te solar cell（0.0707 cm^2） can be prepared with an efficiency of 10.475%.

Studies of key technologies for CdTe solar modules

In this paper, CdS thin films, which act as the window layer and n-type partner to the p-type CdTe layer, were prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD). CdTe thin films were deposited by the close-spaced sublimation (CSS) method. To obtain high-quality back contacts, a Te-rich layer was created with chemical etching and back contact materials were applied after CdTe annealing. The results indicate that the ZnTe/ZnTe:Cu complex layers show superior performance over other back contacts. Finally, by using laser scribing and mechanical scribing, the CdTe mini-modules were fabricated, in which a glass/SnO2:F/CdS/CdTe/ZnTe/ZnTe:Cu/Ni solar module with a PWQC-confirmed total-area efficiency of 7.03% (54 cm2) was achieved.

Effects of different CdCl_2 annealing methods on the performance of CdS/Cd Te polycrystalline thin film solar cells

In this paper, the effects of different Cd Cl2 annealing methods, including vapor annealing and dip-coating annealing, on the performance of Cd S/Cd Te polycrystalline thin-film solar cells are studied. After annealing, the samples are lightly etched with 1% bromine in methanol to remove surface oxides. Both annealing methods give Cd Te polycrystalline thin films with good crystallinity and complete structure. For solar cells containing the annealed Cd Te films, cell efficiency first increases and then decreases as the concentration of Cd Cl2 solution used for dip-coating annealing increases, and the optimized Cd Cl2 concentration is 12%. The uniformity of the performance of all cells is analyzed by calculating the relative standard deviation for each parameter. The uniformity of cell performance can be improved dramatically by dip-coating annealing instead of vapor annealing. Most notably, an appropriate concentration of Cd Cl2(12%) acts as a protective layer that is conducive to realizing uniform high-performance Cd S/Cd Te solar cells. According to the location of depletion regions, the Cd Te films treated by dip-coating annealing show a relatively low doping concentration, except for the sample treated with a Cd Cl2 concentration of 6%, which is consistent with the changes of short-circuit current density of the cells. It is believed that these results can be applied to the large-scale production of Cd Te polycrystalline thin-film solar cells.

Effect of ZnTe/ZnTe:Cu complex back-contact on device characteristics of CdTe solar cells

ZnTe/ZnTe:Cu complex layers deposited by vacuum co-evaporation have been in- troduced to CdS/CdTe solar cells. The C-V and I-V curves have been investigated and the effects of un-doped ZnTe layer thickness as well as annealing temperatures on I-V characteristics of CdTe solar cells have been studied. The results show that the “roll over” and “cross over” phenomena of dark and light I-V curves can be eliminated by use of ZnTe/ZnTe:Cu layer and the fill factor for a typical sample has increased to 73%, where there is no high resistance transparent layer. The reasons have been discussed combined with the energy band diagram of CdTe solar cells.