Biaxially oriented CdTe films on glass substrate through nanostructured Ge/CaF sub(2) buffer layers

Heteroepitaxial CdTe films were grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition on glass substrates through nanostructured Ge/CaF sub(2) buffer layers which were biaxially oriented. It allows us to explore the structural properties of multilayer biaxial semiconductor films which possess small angle...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials research express 2015-09, Vol.2 (9), p.1-9
Main Authors: Lord, R J, Su, P-Y, Bhat, I, Zhang, S B, Lu, T-M, Wang, G-C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cadmium tellurides
Calcium fluoride
Germanium
Glass
Grain boundaries
Nanostructure
Semiconductors
Solar cells
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Summary:Heteroepitaxial CdTe films were grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition on glass substrates through nanostructured Ge/CaF sub(2) buffer layers which were biaxially oriented. It allows us to explore the structural properties of multilayer biaxial semiconductor films which possess small angle grain boundaries and to test the principle of a solar cell made of such low-cost, low-growth-temperature semiconductor films. Through the x-ray diffraction and x-ray pole figure analysis, the heteroepitaxial relationships of the mutilayered films are determined as [111] in the out-of-plane direction and [left angle bracket]110[right angle bracket] sub(CdTe)//[left angle bracket]110[right angle bracket] sub(Ge)//[left angle bracket]110[right angle bracket] sub(CaF2) in the in-plane direction. The I-V curves measured from an ITO/CdS/CdTe/Ge/CaF sub(2)/glass solar cell test structure shows a power conversion efficiency of ~[eta]= 1.26%, illustrating the initial success of such an approach. The observed non-ideal efficiency is believed to be due to a low shunt resistance and high series resistance as well as some residual large-angle grain boundary effects, leaving room for significant further improvement.
ISSN:2053-1591
2053-1591
DOI:10.1088/2053-1591/2/9/095017