Electrical properties of N-type CdS and P-type CdTe thin films in CdS/CdTe solar cells

Author

Jingjin Wu ; Ang, Federico ; Cezhou Zhao ; Smith, Jeffrey S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Electron., Univ. of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

fYear

2013

fDate

15-19 July 2013

Firstpage

385

Lastpage

389

Abstract

Cadmium Sulfide thin films have been deposited on cleaned glass substrates in vacuum at various deposition conditions. The Cadmium Telluride powder was coated on copper foil by three methods respectively. Then, the samples were sintered at high temperature in a furnace. The effects of the deposition conditions on the thin film properties were investigated by measuring electrical resistivity and conduction type. By investigating the electrical properties of the thin films, we find that the thin film transparency strongly depends on the Cadmium dopant concentration rather than the thickness. On the other hand, the CdTe/Cu sintered film shows a strong p-type property and has an extremely small resistivity. Pinholes and cracks of the thin films were also discussed.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; cadmium compounds; cracks; doping profiles; electrical conductivity; electrical resistivity; semiconductor growth; semiconductor thin films; sintering; transparency; vacuum deposition; wide band gap semiconductors; CdS; CdS-CdTe solar cells; CdTe; SiO₂; cadmium dopant concentration; cadmium sulfide thin films; cadmium telluride powder; cleaned glass substrates; copper foil; cracks; electrical conduction; electrical properties; electrical resistivity; n-type CdS thin films; p-type CdTe thin films; p-type property; pinholes; sintering; thin film transparency; vacuum deposition; Decision support systems; Failure analysis; Films; Integrated circuits; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Three-dimensional displays; CdS; CdTe; electrical properties; morphology; thin films;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IPFA), 2013 20th IEEE International Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Suzhou

ISSN

1946-1542

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-1241-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2013.6599187

Filename

6599187