Solar thin-film

Copper Sulfide—Cadmium Sulfide. This thin-film solar cell was used in early aerospace experiments dating back to 1955. The Cu S band gap is ca 1.2 eV. Various methods of fabricating thin-film solar cells from Cu S/CdS materials exist. The most common method is based on a simple process of serially overcoating a metal substrate, eg, copper (16). The substrate first is coated with zinc which serves as an ohmic contact between the copper and a 30-p.m thick, vapor-deposited layer of polycrystaUine CdS. A layer is then formed on the CdS base by dipping the unit into hot cuprous chloride, followed by heat-treating it in air. A heterojunction then exists between the CdS and Cu S layers. 

Small-area thin-film CdTe solar cells have been fabricated with sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiencies near 16%, comparable to crystalline siUcon solar cells in large-scale manufacturing. Large-area monolithic integrated CdTe modules have been fabricated with efficiencies of ca 10%, comparable to crystalline siUcon modules commercially available. 

In most cases, CVD reactions are activated thermally, but in some cases, notably in exothermic chemical transport reactions, the substrate temperature is held below that of the feed material to obtain deposition. Other means of activation are available (7), eg, deposition at lower substrate temperatures is obtained by electric-discharge plasma activation. In some cases, unique materials are produced by plasma-assisted CVD (PACVD), such as amorphous siHcon from silane where 10—35 mol % hydrogen remains bonded in the soHd deposit. Except for the problem of large amounts of energy consumption in its formation, this material is of interest for thin-film solar cells. Passivating films of Si02 or Si02 Si N deposited by PACVD are of interest in the semiconductor industry (see Semiconductors). 

Selenium is also used in thin-film photovoltaic cells (qv) which contain copper indium diselenide [12018-95-0] CuInSe2. Use is quite small as of 1996. However, if the United States solar energy output with such cells were to increase by 100 MW/yr, this would require 8 t of selenium aimuaHy (see... 

Fig. 4. Some electronic device applications using amorphous silicon (a) solar cell, (b) thin-fiLm transistor, (c) image sensor, and (d) nuclear particle detector.

Space-based solar ceUs are covered with a very thin layer of vitreous siHca to protect against the damaging environment of space such as atomic oxygen, micrometeorites, and radiation effects. Because the siHca is transparent to damaging uv radiation, it is normally coated with a uv-reflective thin film... 

Inorganic monomers can be used to plasma-deposit polymer-type films (16). At high plasma energies, the monomers are largely decomposed and can be used to form materials such as amorphous hydrogen-containing siUcon films from SiH for thin-film solar-ceU materials. 

The chemical and electronic properties of elements at the interfaces between very thin films and bulk substrates are important in several technological areas, particularly microelectronics, sensors, catalysis, metal protection, and solar cells. To study conditions at an interface, depth profiling by ion bombardment is inadvisable, because both composition and chemical state can be altered by interaction with energetic positive ions. The normal procedure is, therefore, to start with a clean or other well-characterized substrate and deposit the thin film on to it slowly at a chosen temperature while XPS is used to monitor the composition and chemical state by recording selected characteristic spectra. The procedure continues until no further spectral changes occur, as a function of film thickness, of time elapsed since deposition, or of changes in substrate temperature. 

Yet another alternative is the thin-film solar cell. This cannot use silicon, because the transmission of solar radiation through silicon is high enough to require relatively thick silicon layers. One current favourite is the Cu(Ga, InjSci thin-film solar cell, with an efficiency up to 17% in small experimental cells. This material has a very high light absorption and the total thickness of the active layer (on a glass substrate) is only 2 pm. 

Quite recently (2001) titanium dioxide has been used to coat "self-cleaning" windows with a very thin film about 5 x 10-6 cm thick. The titanium dioxide acts as a catalyst for the decomposition of dust and grime by solar ultraviolet light. Probably more important, it lowers surface tension so that rain water "sheets down" the window, washing away dirt. 

Textured Tin Oxide Films Produced by Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition from Tetramethyltin and Their Usefulness in Producing Light Trapping in Thin-Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Energy Mater., 18 263-281 (1989)... 

A smaller class of type II alloys of II-VI binaries also exists, including the (CdS) ,(ZnSe)i (CdS) ,(ZnTe)i (CdSe) ,(ZnSe)i (CdS) ,(CdTe)i-. (CdSe)x(CdTe)i i , and (CdS) c(ZnS)i i systems, which transform at some critical composition from the W to the ZB structure. Importantly, the transition temperatures are usually well below those required to attain a thermodynamically stable wurtzite form for the binary constituents (e.g., 700-800 °C for pure CdS and > 1,020 "C for pure ZnS). The type 11 pseudobinary CdxZni jcSe is of considerable interest in thin film form for the development of tandem solar cells as well as for the fabrication of superlattices and phosphor materials for monitors. The CdSe Tei-x alloy is one of the most investigated semiconductors in photoelectrochemical applications. 

Numerous ternary systems are known for II-VI structures incorporating elements from other groups of the Periodic Table. One example is the Zn-Fe-S system Zn(II) and Fe(II) may substimte each other in chalcogenide structures as both are divalent and have similar radii. The cubic polymorphs of ZnS and FeS have almost identical lattice constant a = 5.3 A) and form solid solutions in the entire range of composition. The optical band gap of these alloys varies (rather anomalously) within the limits of the ZnS (3.6 eV) and FeS (0.95 eV) values. The properties of Zn Fei-xS are well suited for thin film heterojunction-based solar cells as well as for photoluminescent and electroluminescent devices. 

It should be stressed that the key point in the recent success of ZnS application in thin film solar cells is the use of chemical rather than electrochemical deposition (CBD), which is successfully applied also for obtaining Cdi- Zn S films. Note though that smdies on the chemical growth of ZnS are limited compared to CdS, and the level of understanding of the deposition mechanism is inferior. 

Electrodeposition of copper indium disulfide (CulnS2) has been reported [180-182], In a typical instance, single-phase polycrystalline CuInS2 thin films composed of 1-3 fim sized crystallites were grown on Ti by sulfurization of Cu-ln precursors prepared by sequentially electrodeposited Cu and In layers [183]. In this work, solar cells were fabricated by electrodepositing ZnSe on CuInS2. Cyclic... 

Iron sulfide as pyrite (FeS2) has been shown to be a promising photoactive material for photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic solar cells. Whereas a variety of methods have been employed for the preparation of thin films of this material, including CVT, MOCVD, spray-pyrolysis, and sulfidation of either iron oxide or iron, the direct efectrodeposition of FeS2 thin films has proven to be problematic. 

The optical properties of electrodeposited, polycrystalline CdTe have been found to be similar to those of single-crystal CdTe [257]. In 1982, Fulop et al. [258] reported the development of metal junction solar cells of high efficiency using thin film (4 p,m) n-type CdTe as absorber, electrodeposited from a typical acidic aqueous solution on metallic substrate (Cu, steel, Ni) and annealed in air at 300 °C. The cells were constructed using a Schottky barrier rectifying junction at the front surface (vacuum-deposited Au, Ni) and a (electrodeposited) Cd ohmic contact at the back. Passivation of the top surface (treatment with KOH and hydrazine) was seen to improve the photovoltaic properties of the rectifying junction. The best fabricated cell comprised an efficiency of 8.6% (AMI), open-circuit voltage of 0.723 V, short-circuit current of 18.7 mA cm, and a fill factor of 0.64. 

Savadogo O (1998) Chemically and electrochemicaUy deposited thin films for solar energy materials. Sol Energy Mater Sol Cells 52 361-388... 

Gruszecki T, Holmstrdm B (1993) Preparation of thin films of polycrystaUine CdSe for solar energy conversion 1. A literature survey. Sol Energy Mater Sol Cells 31 227-234... 

Basol BB (1988) Electrodeposited CdTe and HgCdTe solar Cells. Sol Cells 23 69-88 Bhattacharya RN, Rajeshwar K, Noufi RN (1985) In situ preparation of p-Type CdTe thin films by cathodic electrodeposition. J Electrochem Soc 132 732-734 Llabres J (1984) In situ preparation of undoped p-Type CdTe by cathodic electrochemical deposition. J Electrochem Soc 131 464 65... 

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