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2018 PVSC Halogen substitution CdTe Full paper print.pdf (738 kB)

Activation of thin film CdTe solar cells using a cadmium bromide treatment

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conference contribution
posted on 2019-03-18, 14:35 authored by Rachael Greenhalgh, Ali Abbas, Amit Munshi, Tushar M. Shimpi, Kurt L. Barth, Walajabad S. Sampath, Jake BowersJake Bowers, Michael WallsMichael Walls
The activation of CdTe with a cadmium chloride annealing treatment is a vital step in the fabrication of high efficiency solar cells. Thin film MZO/CdTe cells have been activated using CdBr2 instead of CdCl2 with a lower activation process temperature. Using this method, CdBr2 does activate the cell as revealed by J-V and EQE measurements. TEM and EDX elemental maps from device cross-sections confirm that bromine is present in the grain boundaries. TEM shows that the treatment removes stacking faults at 425 °C. CdBr2 treatment resulted in a relatively modest conversion efficiency of 5.49% when treated at 375 °C. Nevertheless, the experiments shed further light on the mechanisms involved in the activation.

Funding

The Loughborough University authors are grateful to UKERC for financial assistance through the EPSRC Supergen SuperSolar Hub and a studentship with the CDT in New and Sustainable Photovoltaics

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC) 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC)

Citation

GREENHALGH, R.C. .... et al., 2018. Activation of thin film CdTe solar cells using a cadmium bromide treatment. Presented at the 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC), Waikoloa Village, HI, USA, 10-15 June, pp. 2990 - 2993.

Publisher

© IEEE

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Acceptance date

2018-05-16

Publication date

2018

Notes

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

ISBN

9781538685297

Language

  • en

Location

Hawaii

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