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Title: Effect of intermixing at CdS/CdTe interface on defect properties

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4959848· OSTI ID:1293800
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
  2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  3. Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations

We investigated the stability and electronic properties of defects in CdTe1-xSx that can be formed at the CdS/CdTe interface. As the anions mix at the interface, the defect properties are significantly affected, especially those defects centered at cation sites like Cd vacancy, VCd, and Te on Cd antisite, TeCd, because the environment surrounding the defect sites can have different configurations. Furthermore, we show that at a given composition, the transition energy levels of VCd and TeCd become close to the valence band maximum when the defect has more S atoms in their local environment, thus improving the device performance. Such beneficial role is also found at the grain boundaries when the Te atom is replaced by S in the Te-Te wrong bonds, reducing the energy of the grain boundary level. On the other hand, the transition levels with respect to the valence band edge of CdTe1-xSx increases with the S concentration as the valence band edge decreases with the S concentration, resulting in the reduced p-type doping efficiency.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1293800
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5K00-66931
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 4; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 10 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (18)

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Grain-Boundary-Enhanced Carrier Collection in CdTe Solar Cells journal April 2014
Stability and electronic structure of the low- Σ grain boundaries in CdTe: a density functional study journal January 2015
Possible effects of oxygen in Te-rich Σ3 (112) grain boundaries in CdTe journal September 2012
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Cited By (2)

Finding a junction partner for candidate solar cell absorbers enargite and bournonite from electronic band and lattice matching journal February 2019
Finding a junction partner for candidate solar cell absorbers enargite and bournonite from electronic band and lattice matching text January 2018

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