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The effect of temperature on resistive ZnO layers and the performance of thin film CdTe solar cells

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posted on 2016-12-09, 11:48 authored by Francesco Bittau, Ali AbbasAli Abbas, Kurt L. Barth, Jake BowersJake Bowers, Michael WallsMichael Walls
The use of a highly resistive transparent (HRT) layer has been shown to increase the efficiency of thin film CdTe heterostructure solar cells incorporating a thin CdS layer. In this study ZnO HRT layers were deposited at different substrate temperatures on soda lime glass and on fluorine-doped tin oxide-coated glass to enable structural, optical and electrical characterization. The performance of equivalent films was tested within CdS/CdTe solar cells. The ZnO thickness was limited to 150 nm, whilst the substrate temperature was varied from 20 °C to 400 °C during deposition. X-ray diffraction patterns and transmission electron microscopy of the cross-sectional microstructure of completed devices showed that the growth of the ZnO is improved when the films are deposited at higher temperatures. Film resistivity was lowest at 100 °C and highest at 400 °C, ranging from 10− 2 Ω·cm to 0.33 Ω·cm. The high temperature deposited ZnO exhibits improved micro-structural growth and an improvement in device efficiency.

Funding

EPSRC SUPERGEN SuperSolar Hub funding (EP/J017361/1).

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Thin Solid Films

Citation

BITTAU, F. ... et al, 2017. The effect of temperature on resistive ZnO layers and the performance of thin film CdTe solar cells. Thin Solid Films, 633, pp.92-96.

Publisher

Elsevier (© The Authors)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-10-31

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0040-6090

Language

  • en

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