Structural properties of CdTe and ZnTe thin films deposited on flexible foil substrates

Author

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

Author_Institution

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

fYear

2010

fDate

20-25 June 2010

Abstract

A common feature of the most efficient laboratory scale CdS/CdTe solar cells has been the use of close-spaced sublimation (CSS) for the deposition of CdTe [1]. In this study, the growth of CdTe and ZnTe thin films deposited on flexible foil substrates by CSS has been investigated in order to study their structural properties for solar cell applications. Thin films of CdTe were deposited by CSS onto substrates held at temperatures in the range of 400-550°C. The effect of the substrate-source temperature and the growth rate on the structure and surface morphology of CdTe films were analyzed. The structural and surface morphology of the CdTe films were determined by XRD and SEM. Similar studies have been done on the growth characteristics of ZnTe which is often used as a back contact interlayer.

Keywords

X-ray diffraction; cadmium compounds; liquid phase deposition; scanning electron microscopy; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; zinc compounds; CdTe; SEM; XRD; ZnTe; close-spaced sublimation; film surface morphology; flexible foil substrates; solar cell structural properties; temperature 400 degC to 550 degC; thin films deposition;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2010 35th IEEE

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5890-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2010.5616690

Filename

5616690