Evaporated Te on CdTe: A vacuum-compatible approach to making back contact to CdTe solar cell devices
✍ Scribed by David W. Niles; Xiaonan Li; David Albin; Doug Rose; Timothy Gessert; Peter Sheldon
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 327 KB
- Volume
- 4
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1062-7995
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✦ Synopsis
A commonly used process for forming low-resistance contacts to thin-film ptype CdTe involves the formation of a Te layer by etching the CdTefilm in a concentrated mixture of nitric and phosphoric acids. The authors compare evaporated Te back contacts with 'control' back contacts formed by the usual etchingprocess, and demonstrate that evaporating Te onto a CdTe thinfilm is a viable process for forming a low-resistance contact. The best eficiency achieved for a CdTe solar cell made with an evaporated Te back contact is 12.1%, whereas the eficiency of the device made with the control back contact was 11.9%. The evaporation process oflers numerous advantages over acid etching, most notably vacuum compatibility amenable to large-scale production of CdTe solar cell modules.