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Low temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy studies on sputter deposited CdS/CdTe junctions and solar cells

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Abstract

Device quality CdS/CdTe heterostructures and completed solar cells (∼12% efficient) have been studied using photoluminescence (PL) as a function of temperature and laser excitation power. The CdS/CdTe junctions were grown on transparent conducting oxide covered soda lime glass using radio frequency sputter deposition. In the current work we found that the PL spectra of sputtered and thermally evaporated CdTe absorber films share common features. It was found that the luminescence shifts from being dominated by sub-gap defect-mediated emission at lower excitation powers to near band edge excitonic emission at higher excitation powers. It was found that the presence of Cu suppresses the sub-band gap PL emissions. This effect was concluded to be due either to Cu occupying cadmium vacancies (VCd) or forming acceptor complexes with them. This points to a potential role of Cu in eliminating sub-band gap recombination routes and hence increasing the charge separation ability of the device.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors acknowledge Allen Hall for useful discussions and help in experimentation. The financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (Contract DE-EE0005405) is greatly appreciated. This work was carried out in part in the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Research Facilities, University of Illinois.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801, USA

    Mohit Tuteja & Angus Rockett

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, 43606, USA

    Prakash Koirala & Robert Collins

  3. Frederick-Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801, USA

    Julio Soares

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  1. Mohit Tuteja
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  2. Prakash Koirala
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Correspondence to Mohit Tuteja.

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Tuteja, M., Koirala, P., Soares, J. et al. Low temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy studies on sputter deposited CdS/CdTe junctions and solar cells. Journal of Materials Research 31, 186–194 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.399

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