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Schematic diagram of across-section of a CdTe solar cell in (a) superstrate, and (b) substrate configuration, where the arrows show the direction of illumination.
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The cadmium sulfide (CdS)/cadmium telluride (CdTe) heterojunction is a promising material combination
for the development of cost efficient solar cells to meet the world’s future energy demand.
This study examined the effects of the surface roughness of six different layers, such as FTO, SnO2
buffered FTO, thick and thin CdS layers deposited on the...
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Citations
... SnO 2 provides the minimum lattice mismatch due to the matching crystal parameter used with the FTO front contact electrode. SnO 2 buffer layer drives the TCO surface roughness to be reduced as the study by Balashangar [70] et al. [78] suggests the better contact with the CdS layer provided due to the buffer layer. Many authors have reported over 15% CdTe cell efficiency by using SnO 2 as shunt preventing buffer layer [79,80]. ...
This chapter discusses the detailed understanding of metal oxide (MO) thin films and their applications in the field of photovoltaic (PV) solar cell devices. The chapter begins with the literature survey of photovoltaics and metal oxides and explains the utilization, properties, and growth mechanism of metal oxide in the area of thin-film solar cells (TFSCs). Two major TFSC PV technologies, viz. CdTe and CIGS, have highlighted insight into the fabrication, application of the metal oxides layers to enhance the various solar cell parameters and hence the output power of devices. Application of metal oxides such as front and back contacts by using transparent conducting properties and passivation layer by utilizing insulating properties is extensively covered in the following subsections. Zinc (Zn)-, molybdenum (Mo)-, indium (In)-, and vanadium (V)-based metal oxides are explained including synthesis, stability, and applications at the interface level.
... The film also showed no signs of pinholes and any unusual overshoots. Hence, there is no or minimum chance for CdTe-FTO shunting which could result in a reduction in FF due to decreased R sh [33]. The decrement of the alternate current path between FTO and CdTe will reduce recombination losses, which can result in the FF and J SC increment reflected in the R sh [34]. ...
CdS thin films were deposited with different thicknesses on Fluorine-doped Tin Oxide glass substrates by vacuum thermal evaporation technique. Vacuum annealed CdS thin films were characterized for structural, optical, topological, and electrical properties. The optical bandgap of CdS varied between 2.39 and 2.43 eV with increasing thickness. Profile fit, Pawley Refinement technique, and Rietveld Refinement technique were used to determine structural properties and phase distribution. The influence of thickness on the photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells was discussed with current-voltage and Mott-Schottky analysis. The thermal evaporation technique was used to deposit the CdTe layer on top of the CdS layer to fabricate CdS/CdTe solar cells. The highest efficiency (4.43%) and external quantum efficiency (71%) were observed for the cells fabricated with CdS film thickness of 210 nm. SCAPS-1D simulation was used to confirm the variation further.
... CdS is an n-type semiconducting material with a direct bandgap of 1.42 eV, which is widely studied as a window material in CdTe and CuInGaSe thin film solar cells [15]. Relatively higher electron mobility makes CdS a suitable material for HBL in bulk heterojunction solar cells [16][17][18][19]. ...
... Relatively higher electron mobility makes CdS a suitable material for HBL in bulk heterojunction solar cells [16][17][18][19]. CdS thin films can be fabricated on the nanoscale using several methods including SILAR [20], atomic layer deposition [16], chemical vapor deposition [21], close space sublimation [22], and chemical bath deposition (CBD) [15,23]. Of all these, CBD is a simple and efficient method to fabricate CdS thin film using the solution process method at low temperatures. ...
... CdS thin films were grown on a cleaned ITO coated glass substrate using a simple CBD method. The CBD method adopted was reported in detail elsewhere [15,24,25]. Aqueous solutions of 33 mM cadmium chloride (CdCl 2 ) (99.99%, Sigma Aldrich), 66 mM thiourea ((NH 2 ) 2 CN) (99%, Sigma Aldrich), 1 M ammonium chloride (NH 4 Cl) (99.9%, ...
In this work, chemical bath-deposited cadmium sulfide (CdS) thin films were employed as an alternative hole-blocking layer for inverted poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) bulk heterojunction solar cells. CdS films were deposited by chemical bath deposition and their thicknesses were successfully controlled by tailoring the deposition time. The influence of the CdS layer thickness on the performance of P3HT:PCBM solar cells was systematically studied. The short circuit current densities and power conversion efficiencies of P3HT:PCBM solar cells strongly increased until the thickness of the CdS layer was increased to ~70 nm. This was attributed to the suppression of the interfacial charge recombination by the CdS layer, which is consistent with the lower dark current found with the increased CdS layer thickness. A further increase of the CdS layer thickness resulted in a lower short circuit current density due to strong absorption of the CdS layer as evidenced by UV-Vis optical studies. Both the fill factor and open circuit voltage of the solar cells with a CdS layer thickness less than ~50 nm were comparatively lower, and this could be attributed to the effect of pin holes in the CdS film, which reduces the series resistance and increases the charge recombination. Under AM 1.5 illumination (100 mW/cm2) conditions, the optimized PCBM:P3HT solar cells with a chemical bath deposited a CdS layer of thickness 70 nm and showed 50% power conversion efficiency enhancement, in comparison with similar solar cells with optimized dense TiO2 of 50 nm thickness prepared by spray pyrolysis.
... The CdS layer was grown onto the nanoporous TiO 2 layer by chemical bath deposition as described in Refs. [24,25]. Aqueous solutions of 0.033 M cadmium chloride (CdCl 2 ), 0.066 M thiourea ((NH 2 ) 2 CN), 1 M ammonium chloride (NH 4 Cl), and 1 M ammonium hydroxide (NH 4 OH) were used as precursors. ...
... The CdS layer was grown onto the nanoporous TiO2 layer by chemical bath deposition as described in Refs. [24,25]. Aqueous solutions of 0.033 M cadmium chloride (CdCl2), 0.066 M thiourea ((NH2)2CN), 1 M ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), and 1 M ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) were used as precursors. ...
... Figure 2a shows the UV-Vis-NIR (ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared) spectra of bare TiO2 film and CdS-deposited nanoporous TiO2 films with deposition times of 8, 12, 16, and 24 min before deposition of P3HT. The strong absorption edge of 520 nm ensures the presence of direct band gap CdS in the films [24,25]. The absorption peak of CdS in the UV region increases with the increment of CdS layer in the nanoporous TiO2 electrode with increased deposition time, as reported in [26,27]. ...
This work reports the effect of co-sensitization of nanoporous titanium dioxide using Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) on the performance of hybrid solar cells. CdS nanolayer with different thicknesses was grown on Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles by chemical bath deposition technique with varying deposition times. Both atomic force microscopy (AFM) and UV–Vis–NIR spectroscopy measurements of TiO2 electrode sensitized with and without CdS layer confirm that the existence of CdS layer on TiO2 nanoparticles. AFM images of CdS-coated TiO2 nanoparticles show that the surface roughness of the TiO2 nanoparticle samples decreases with increasing CdS deposition times. Current density–voltage and external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements were carried out for corresponding solar cells. Both short circuit current density (JSC) and fill factor were optimized at the CdS deposition time of 12 min. On the other hand, a steady and continuous increment in the open circuit voltage (VOC) was observed with increasing CdS deposition time and increased up to 0.81 V when the deposition time was 24 min. This may be attributed to the increased gradual separation of P3HT and TiO2 phases and their isolation at the interfaces. The higher VOC of 0.81 V was due to the higher built-in voltage at the CdS–P3HT interface when compared to that at the TiO2–P3HT interface. Optimized nanoporous TiO2 solar cells with CdS and P3HT co-sensitizers showed external quantum efficiency (EQE) of over 40% and 80% at the wavelengths corresponding to strong absorption of the polymer and CdS, respectively. The cells showed an overall average efficiency of over 2.4% under the illumination of 70 mW/cm2 at AM 1.5 condition.
Pure and calcium doped lead sulfide (PbS) thin films were prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The effects of calcium doping content on their structural, morphological and optical properties were investigated by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and UV-visible spectroscopy measurements, respectively. According to X-Ray diffraction patterns all films were polycrystalline in nature, with a cubic crystal structure. It was observed from SEM analysis that calcium doping level affected the film morphology and surface roughness. Incorporation of Ca was confirmed from Energy dispersive X-Ray analysis results. Tauc method was used to estimate the optical band gap energies (Eg) of the pure and calcium doped films. UV-visible analysis showed that the transmittance of the samples varied between 15.3 and 20%. Also, it was observed that transmittance of deposited films increased with adding of calcium. Further, the optical energy band gap values were found to enhance (1.92–2.50 eV) with increasing the Ca content in PbS films.
Well-ordered CdTe/TiO2 heteronanostructure arrays are fabricated via a convenient anodic aluminum oxide template-directed approach and applied to photoelectrochemistry and solar energy devices. Both the CdTe and TiO2 present a decent crystalline quality. In comparison to the photoanode with only TiO2 nanotube array, the CdTe/TiO2 heteronanostructure electrodes possess a dramatic performance improvement.
