Development of back contacts for CdTe thin film solar cells deposited on flexible foil substrates

Author

Hodges, D. ; Palekis, V. ; Shen, D. ; Singh, K. ; Bhandaru, S. ; Stefanakos, E.K. ; Morel, D.L. ; Ferekides, C.S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Univ. of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

7-12 June 2009

Abstract

The formation of low resistance ohmic contacts on p-type CdTe is a major challenge for the superstrate solar cell the dominant device configuration for this technology. It is even a greater challenge for the substrate configuration, since the back contact material is deposited first and is therefore influenced by subsequent high temperature fabrication processing. In this paper, the structural and electrical properties of ZnTe and Sb₂Te₃ films deposited by the close-spaced sublimation and evaporation respectively are presented. Thin film CdTe solar cells of the substrate configuration have been fabricated on flexible foil substrates using ZnTe and Sb₂Te₃ as back contacts, and their performance has been evaluated.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; cadmium compounds; ohmic contacts; semiconductor growth; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; sublimation; vacuum deposition; wide band gap semiconductors; zinc compounds; CdS-CdTe-Sb₂Te₃; CdS-CdTe-ZnTe; back contacts; close-spaced evaporation; close-spaced sublimation; electrical properties; flexible foil substrates; low resistance ohmic contacts; p-type CdTe; structural properties; substrate configuration; superstrate solar cell; thin film solar cells; Contact resistance; Fabrication; Ohmic contacts; Photovoltaic cells; Sputtering; Substrates; Tellurium; Temperature; Transistors; Zinc compounds;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE

Conference_Location

Philadelphia, PA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2949-3

Electronic_ISBN

0160-8371

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2009.5411404

Filename

5411404