| Cadmium telluride (CdTe) polycrystalline thin film solar cells, with their near optimum direct band-gap of 1.4 eV matching almost perfectly the sun radiation spectrum, are a strong contender as a less expensive alternative, among photovoltaic materials, than the more commonly used silicon-based cells.; Polycrystalline solar cells are usually deposited over large areas. Such devices often exhibit strong fluctuations (nonuniformities) in electronic properties, which originate from deposition and post-deposition processes, and are detrimental to the device performance. Therefore their effects need to be constrained. A new approach in this work was, when a CdS/CdTe solar cell is exposed to light and immersed in a proper electrolyte, fluctuations in surface potential can drive electrochemical reactions which result in a nonuniform interfacial layer that could balance the original nonuniformity. This approach improved the device efficiency for CdS/CdTe photovoltaic devices from 1--3% to 11--12%.; Cadmium sulfide (CdS), used as a window layer and heterojunction partner to CdTe, is electrically inactive and absorb light energies above its band-gap of 2.4 eV. Therefore, to maximize the device efficiency, a thin US layer needs to be used. However, more defects, such as pinholes, are likely to be present in the film, leading to shunts. A resistive transparent layer, called buffer layer, is therefore deposited before CdS. A key observation was that the open-circuit voltage (Voc) for cells made using a buffer layer was high, around 800 mV, similar to cells without buffer layer after Cu doping. The standard p-n junction theory cannot explain this phenomena, therefore an alternative junction mechanism, similar to metal-insulator-semiconductor devices, was developed.; Furthermore, alternative Cu-free back-contacts were used in conjunction with a buffer layer. The Voc of the devices was found to be dependent of the back contact used. This change occurs as the back-contact junction changes its behavior from a standard Schottky diode to a reach-through diode.; Combining a buffer layer and Au back contact led to more than 13% efficient cells without any intentional Cu doping. Those structures have also the potential for better long-term stability than the more commonly used Cu-doped one. |
