A treatment to allow contacting CdTe with different conductors

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:208021

McCandless, B E; Qu, Y; Birkmire, R W ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States). Inst. of Energy Conversion

A new method is presented for forming low resistance contacts to the CdTe surface of CdTe/CdS thin-film solar cells. After CdCl{sub 2} processing, the CdTe surface is coated with a thin layer of copper which is heated and then reacted. The heat treatment diffuses Cu into CdTe, doping it p-type while the reaction removes elemental Cu and produces a conductive surface which is easily contacted using different materials. This process allows great flexibility in selection of a back contact material. High efficiency devices having fill factors up to 77% were fabricated. The process is applicable to CdTe/CdS devices having CdTe deposited by different techniques and is compatible with module fabrication technologies.

• OSTI ID: 208021
• Report Number(s): CONF-941203--; ISBN 0-7803-1459-X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
BACK CONTACT SOLAR CELLS
CADMIUM CHLORIDES
CADMIUM SULFIDE SOLAR CELLS
CADMIUM TELLURIDE SOLAR CELLS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
COPPER ADDITIONS
COPPER TELLURIDES
DOPED MATERIALS
ELECTRIC CONTACTS
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
FABRICATION
HEAT TREATMENTS