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Effect of CdS Layer Thickness on Thermally Evaporated-CdS/CdTe Solar Cell Efficiency

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Abstract

CdS thin films were deposited with different thicknesses on Fluorine-doped Tin Oxide glass substrates by vacuum thermal evaporation technique. Vacuum annealed CdS thin films were characterized for structural, optical, topological, and electrical properties. The optical bandgap of CdS varied between 2.39 and 2.43 eV with increasing thickness. Profile fit, Pawley Refinement technique, and Rietveld Refinement technique were used to determine structural properties and phase distribution. The influence of thickness on the photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells was discussed with current-voltage and Mott-Schottky analysis. The thermal evaporation technique was used to deposit the CdTe layer on top of the CdS layer to fabricate CdS/CdTe solar cells. The highest efficiency (4.43%) and external quantum efficiency (71%) were observed for the cells fabricated with CdS film thickness of 210 nm. SCAPS-1D simulation was used to confirm the variation further.

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Data availability

Datasets related to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/gjw3z6n978.1, an open-source online data repository hosted at Mendeley Data (Lakmal, A.A.I., 2021)

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Acknowledgements

Financial assistance from the Solar Edu-Training Project of the State Ministry of Skills Development, Vocational Education, Research and Innovation, Sri Lanka is gratefully acknowledged. Postgraduate Institute of Science (PGIS)-University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Department of Physics, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Department of Physics and Electronics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka are acknowledged for instrumental as well as technical support provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Postgraduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    A. A. I. Lakmal, R. K. K. G. R. G. Kumarasinghe, V. A. Seneviratne & B. S. Dassanayake

  2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

    V. A. Seneviratne & B. S. Dassanayake

  3. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Jaffna, Jaffna, Sri Lanka

    M. Thanihaichelvan

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  1. A. A. I. Lakmal
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  5. B. S. Dassanayake
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Contributions

AAIL Conceptualization, Data Curation, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing–Original Draft. RKKGRGK Data curation, Methodology. VAS Supervision, Writing–Review & Editing. MT Resources, Writing–Review & Editing. BSD Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing–Review & Editing, Project administration.

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Correspondence to B. S. Dassanayake.

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Lakmal, A.A.I., Kumarasinghe, R.K.K.G.R.G., Seneviratne, V.A. et al. Effect of CdS Layer Thickness on Thermally Evaporated-CdS/CdTe Solar Cell Efficiency. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 15627–15637 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08467-4

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