Diffusion barriers for CdS/CdTe Solar cells fabricated on flexible substrates

摘要

Thin film CdS/CdTe solar cells of the substrate configuration have been fabricated on stainless steel substrates. Impurities diffusing from the substrate to the film during fabrication were detrimental to the performance of the cells. SiO2, Si3N4, and MoxNy (molybdenum nitride) diffusion barriers were used in order to study the effect of these barriers on cell performance. The results suggest that cell performance improves with the use of these barriers. MoxNy resulted in the best performance solar cells. A critical step for high efficiency CdTe solar cells is the cadmium chloride heat treatment (CdCl2-HT). Different conditions of the CdCl2-HT were studied in order to optimize the parameters for the treatment of the substrate solar cells.