Incorporation of CdSe layers into CdTe thin film solar cells

Baines, Tom; Zoppi, Guillaume; Bowen, Leon; Shalvey, Thomas P.; Mariotti, Silvia; Durose, Ken; Major, Jonathan D.

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2018.03.010

Incorporation of CdSe layers into CdTe thin film solar cells

Baines, Tom; Zoppi, Guillaume; Bowen, Leon; Shalvey, Thomas P.; Mariotti, Silvia; Durose, Ken; Major, Jonathan D.

Authors

Tom Baines

Guillaume Zoppi

Leon Bowen leon.bowen@durham.ac.uk
Senior Manager (Electron Microscopy)

Thomas P. Shalvey

Silvia Mariotti

Ken Durose

Jonathan D. Major

Abstract

Incorporation of CdSe layers into CdTe thin film solar cells has recently emerged as a route to improve cell performance. It has been suggested that the formation of lower band gap CdTe(1-x)Se(x) phases following Se diffusion induces bandgap grading which may increase the carrier lifetime and thereby open circuit voltage. In this study we investigate the impact of CdSe incorporation on CdTe solar cell performance. We demonstrate that the standard CdS/CdTe device architecture is incompatible with Se incorporation, owing to large optical losses. An alternative cell structure with an oxide partner layer replacing the CdS with SnO2/CdSe/CdTe is developed, leading to cell efficiencies of > 13.5%. The differences in processing required for effective selenium incorporation are investigated with performance improvements resulting from additional post-growth annealing. Finally, other oxides such as TiO2, ZnO and FTO are demonstrated to be unsuitable partner layers but highlight that the choice of partner layer is key to further improving the performance.

Citation

Baines, T., Zoppi, G., Bowen, L., Shalvey, T. P., Mariotti, S., Durose, K., & Major, J. D. (2018). Incorporation of CdSe layers into CdTe thin film solar cells. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 180, 196-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2018.03.010

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 3, 2018
Online Publication Date	Mar 22, 2018
Publication Date	Jun 15, 2018
Deposit Date	May 24, 2018
Publicly Available Date	May 24, 2018
Journal	Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Print ISSN	0927-0248
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	180
Pages	196-204
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2018.03.010

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).