Thin-film CdTe cells: Reducing the CdTe

Polycrystalline thin-film CdTe is currently the dominant thin-film technology in world-wide PV manufacturing. With finite Te resources world-wide, it is appropriate to consider the limits to reducing the thickness of the CdTe layer in these devices. In our laboratory we have emphasized the use of magnetron sputtering for both CdS and CdTe achieving AM1.5 efficiency over 13% on 3 mm soda-lime glass with commercial TCO and 14% on 1 mm aluminosilicate glass. This deposition technique is well suited to good control of very thin layers and yields relatively small grain size which also facilitates high performance with ultra-thin layers. This paper describes our magnetron sputtering studies for fabrication of very thin CdTe cells. Our thinnest cells had CdTe thicknesses of 1 μm, 0.5 μm and 0.3 μm and yielded efficiencies of 12%, 9.7% and 6.8% respectively. With thinner cells Voc, FF and Jsc are reduced. Current-voltage (J-V), temperature dependent J-V (J-V-T) and apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) measurements provide valuable information for understanding and optimizing cell performance. We find that the stability under light soak appears not to depend on CdTe thickness from 2.5 to 0.5 μm. The use of semitransparent back contacts allows the study of bifacial response which is particularly useful in understanding carrier collection in the very thin devices.