Evaporated Te on CdTe: A vacuum-compatible approach to making back contact to CdTe solar cell devices

Abstract

A commonly used process for forming low-resistance contacts to thin-film p-type CdTe involves the formation of a Te layer by etching the CdTe film in a concentrated mixture of nitric and phosphoric acids. The authors compare evaporated Te back contacts with ‘control’ back contacts formed by the usual etching process, and demonstrate that evaporating Te onto a CdTe thin film is a viable process for forming a low-resistance contact. The best efficiency achieved for a CdTe solar cell made with an evaporated Te back contact is 12.1%, whereas the efficiency of the device made with the control back contact was 11.9%. The evaporation process offers numerous advantages over acid etching, most notably vacuum compatibility amenable to large-scale production of CdTe solar cell modules.