SOLUTION PROCESSING OF CADMIUM SULFIDE BUFFER LAYER AND ALUMINUM-DOPED ZINC OXIDE WINDOW LAYER FOR THIN FILMS SOLAR CELLS

Mahboob Alam (), Mohammad Islam (), Amine Achour (), Ansar Hayat, Bilal Ahsan, Haroon Rasheed, Shahzad Salam () and Mohammad Mujahid
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Mahboob Alam: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Mohammad Islam: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;
Amine Achour: Intégration de Systèmes de Gestion de l'Energie (ISGE), LAAS (CNRS), Toulouse, France
Ansar Hayat: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Bilal Ahsan: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Haroon Rasheed: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Shahzad Salam: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, P. R. China
Mohammad Mujahid: School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan

Surface Review and Letters (SRL), 2014, vol. 21, issue 04, 1-10

Abstract: Cadmium sulfide (CdS) and aluminum-doped zinc oxide (Al:ZnO) thin films are used as buffer layer and front window layer, respectively, in thin film solar cells.CdSandAl:ZnOthin films were produced using chemical bath deposition (CBD) and sol–gel technique, respectively. For CBDCdS, the effect of bath composition and temperature, dipping time and annealing temperature on film properties was investigated. TheCdSfilms are found to be polycrystalline with metastable cubic crystal structure, dense, crack-free surface morphology and the crystallite size of either few nanometers or 12–17 nm depending on bath composition. In case ofCdSfilms produced with 1:2 ratio ofCdandSprecursors, spectrophotometer studies indicate quantum confinement effect, owing to extremely small crystallite size, with an increase inEgvalue from 2.42 eV (for bulkCdS) to ~ 3.76 eV along with a shift in the absorption edge toward ~ 330 nm wavelength. The optimum annealing temperature is 400°C beyond which film properties deteriorate throughSevaporation andCdOformation. On the other hand,Al:ZnOfilms prepared via spin coating of precursor sols containing 0.90–1.10 at.%Alshow that, with an increase inAlconcentration, the average grain size increases from 28 nm to 131 nm with an associated decrease in root-mean-square roughness. The minimum value of electrical resistivity, measured for the films prepared using 0.95 at.%Alin the precursor sol, is ~ 2.7 × 10-4Ω ⋅ cm. The electrical resistivity value rises upon further increase inAldoping level due to introduction of lattice defects andAlsegregation to the grain boundary area, thus limiting electron transport through it.

Keywords: CdS; CBD; Sol–gel; Al:ZnO; resistivity; band gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1142/S0218625X14500590

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