Cu effects on CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells prepared on flexible substrates

Author

Feng, Xianjin ; Singh, Kartikay ; Bhavanam, Sushma ; Palekis, Vasilios ; Morel, Don L. ; Ferekides, Chris S.

Author_Institution

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

fYear

2012

fDate

3-8 June 2012

Abstract

Thin film CdS/CdTe solar cells of the substrate configuration (foil/back contact (BC)/CdTe/CdS/TCO) have been prepared on the molybdenum (Mo)-coated stainless steel substrates. Copper (Cu) is introduced in the cell by briefly immersing the device in a CuCl solution at different stages of the fabrication process in order to study the effect of Cu on cell performance. The structural and morphological properties of the CdTe and CdS films have been investigated. CdS/CdTe solar cells with and without Cu incorporation are characterized. The results suggest that cell performance can be improved by incorporating Cu under certain conditions. Solar cells with efficiencies above 7% have been prepared in this study.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; cadmium compounds; copper; crystal morphology; molybdenum; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; stainless steel; wide band gap semiconductors; CdS-CdTe; CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells; Cu; Cu effects; CuCl solution; flexible substrates; foil/back contact; molybdenum-coated stainless steel substrates; morphological properties; structural properties; substrate configuration; Films; Performance evaluation; Photovoltaic cells; Radio frequency; Steel; Substrates; USA Councils; cadmium compounds; copper; crystal microstructure; current-voltage characteristics; doping; photovoltaic cells; surface morphology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2012 38th IEEE

Conference_Location

Austin, TX

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0064-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2012.6317735

Filename

6317735