Doping of CdTe Using CuCl2 Solution for Highly Efficient Photovoltaic Devices

Matthew Reese, Elizabeth LeBlanc, Ebin Bastola, Alex Bordovalos, Niraj Shrestha, Randy Ellingson

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

19 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Here, we report doping of cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin film solar cells using copper (II) chloride (CuCl2) solution in deionized water. The CdTe thin films were immersed in 0.1 mmol CuCl2 solution in water and annealed in the temperature range of 180 - 240 °C for various time durations. The devices were completed using thermally evaporated gold (Au) and measured under simulated AM1.5G spectrum. The average device efficiency of CuCl2 treated CdTe devices increased to 13.7 % (best cell reaching 14.0%) with significant improvement on open-circuit voltage (VOC) as compared with 12.4% (best cell 12.7%) for thermally evaporated Cu doped CdTe devices. For CuCl2 treated CdTe devices, we found higher photoluminescence (PL) intensity and longer carrier life time at room temperature indicating solution based doping offers better control of Cu doping density as compared with evaporated Cu.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages1846-1850
Number of pages5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2019
Event46th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2019 - Chicago, United States
Duration: 16 Jun 201921 Jun 2019

Conference

Conference46th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChicago
Period16/06/1921/06/19

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/CP-5K00-76281

Keywords

  • CdTe
  • CuCl
  • doping
  • solar cells
  • thin films

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