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Chin. Phys. B, 2013, Vol. 22(10): 107803    DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/22/10/107803
CONDENSED MATTER: ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE, ELECTRICAL, MAGNETIC, AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES Prev   Next  

In-situ growth of a CdS window layer by vacuum thermal evaporation for CIGS thin film solar cell applications

Cao Min (曹敏)a, Men Chuan-Ling (门传玲)a, Zhu De-Ming (朱德明)a, Tian Zi-Ao (田子傲)b, An Zheng-Hua (安正华)b
a School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;
b State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Abstract  Highly crystalline and transparent CdS films are grown by utilizing the vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) method. The structural, surface morphological, and optical properties of the films are studied and compared with those prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD). It is found that the films deposited at a high substrate temperature (200 ℃) have a preferential orientation along (002) which is consistent with CBD-grown films. Absorption spectra reveal that the films are highly transparent and the optical band gap values are found to be in a range of 2.44 eV-2.56 eV. CuIn1-xGaxSe2 (CIGS) solar cells with in-situ VTE-grown CdS films exhibit higher values of Voc together with smaller values of Jsc than those from CBD. Eventually the conversion efficiency and fill factor become slightly better than those from the CBD method. Our work suggests that the in-situ thermal evaporation method can be a competitive alternative to the CBD method, particularly in the physical-and vacuum-based CIGS technology.
Keywords:  CdS films      CIGS thin film solar cell      vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE)      chemical bath deposition (CBD)  
Received:  18 May 2013      Revised:  20 June 2013      Accepted manuscript online: 
PACS:  78.66.Hf (II-VI semiconductors)  
  78.20.Jq (Electro-optical effects)  
  68.55.J- (Morphology of films)  
Fund: Project supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant No. 13ZR1428200).
Corresponding Authors:  Men Chuan-Ling     E-mail:  anziloveling@126.com

Cite this article: 

Cao Min (曹敏), Men Chuan-Ling (门传玲), Zhu De-Ming (朱德明), Tian Zi-Ao (田子傲), An Zheng-Hua (安正华) In-situ growth of a CdS window layer by vacuum thermal evaporation for CIGS thin film solar cell applications 2013 Chin. Phys. B 22 107803

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