Correlation between different CdTe nanostructures and the performances of solar cells based on CdTe/CdS heterojunction

• Published in: Journal of electroanalytical chemistry (Lausanne, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2019-09, Vol.849, p.113358, Article 113358
• Main Authors: Akbarnejad, E., Ghorannevis, Z., Mohammadi, E., Fekriaval, L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cadmium sulfide; Cadmium telluride; Cadmium tellurides; CdTe nanostructures; Crystal structure; Emission analysis; Energy gap; Field emission microscopy; Heterojunctions; Hexagonal phase; Magnetron sputtering; Nanorods; Nanostructure; Parameters; Photovoltaic cells; Physical properties; Radio frequency; Solar cell; Solar cells; Spectroscopy; Sputtering; Thin films
• ISSN: 1572-6657; 1873-2569
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2019.113358

Various cadmium telluride (CdTe) structures of nanorods, nanowalls and nanoclusters are successfully prepared via radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique by varying the experimental parameters. The results show that the physical properties of the films are strongly influenced by the experimental parameters. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) is used to study the morphological evolution of the CdTe nanostructures grown by applying different experimental conditions. X-ray diffractometer (XRD) measurements indicate that the crystal structures of the CdTe samples to be hexagonal, and the content of the hexagonal phase is found to be dominant in all the synthesized samples. Moreover, spectrophotometer analysis reveals that the optical transmittance of the films lays between 50 and 65% for three different CdTe nanostructures. Furthermore, the variation of the band gap energy values as a function of different CdTe structures is observed. CdTe/CdS thin film solar cell efficiency is also simulated with TCAD software using the experimental results for the three different CdTe nanostructures. The effect of these various CdTe structures is studied on the CdTe based solar cells performance theoretically to optimize the cell efficiency.