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In-depth analysis of chloride treatments for thin-film CdTe solar cells

Major, J.D.; Al Turkestani, M.; Bowen, L.; Brossard, M.; Li, C.; Lagoudakis, P.; Pennycook, S.J.; Phillips, L.J.; Treharne, R.E.; Durose, K.

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Authors

J.D. Major

M. Al Turkestani

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

M. Brossard

C. Li

P. Lagoudakis

S.J. Pennycook

L.J. Phillips

R.E. Treharne

K. Durose



Abstract

CdTe thin-film solar cells are now the main industrially established alternative to silicon-based photovoltaics. These cells remain reliant on the so-called chloride activation step in order to achieve high conversion efficiencies. Here, by comparison of effective and ineffective chloride treatments, we show the main role of the chloride process to be the modification of grain boundaries through chlorine accumulation, which leads an increase in the carrier lifetime. It is also demonstrated that while improvements in fill factor and short circuit current may be achieved through use of the ineffective chlorides, or indeed simple air annealing, voltage improvement is linked directly to chlorine incorporation at the grain boundaries. This suggests that focus on improved or more controlled grain boundary treatments may provide a route to achieving higher cell voltages and thus efficiencies.

Citation

Major, J., Al Turkestani, M., Bowen, L., Brossard, M., Li, C., Lagoudakis, P., …Durose, K. (2016). In-depth analysis of chloride treatments for thin-film CdTe solar cells. Nature Communications, 7, Article 13231. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13231

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 14, 2016
Online Publication Date Oct 24, 2016
Publication Date Oct 24, 2016
Deposit Date Jun 27, 2018
Publicly Available Date Jul 17, 2018
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 7
Article Number 13231
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13231

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

Copyright Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/




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