Oxygen Incorporation During Fabrication of Substrate CdTe Photovoltaic Devices

Recently, CdTe photovoltaic (PV) devices fabricated in the nonstandard substrate configuration have attracted increasing interest because of their potential compatibility with flexible substrates such as metal foils and polymer films. This compatibility could lead to the suitability of CdTe for roll-to-roll processing and building-integrated PV. Currently, however, the efficiencies of substrate CdTe devices reported in the literature are significantly lower (6%-8%) than those of high-performance superstrate devices (17%) because of significantly lower open-circuit voltage (V_oc) and fill factor (FF). In our recent device development efforts, we have found that processing parameters required to fabricate high-efficiency substrate CdTe PV devices differ from those necessary for traditional superstrate CdTe devices. Here, we investigate how oxygen incorporation in the CdTe deposition, CdCl ₂ heat treatment, CdS deposition, and post-deposition heat treatment affect device characteristics through their effects on the junction. By adjusting whether oxygen is incorporated during these processing steps, we have achieved V_oc values greater than 860 mV and efficiencies greater than 10%.