User Settings
Open AccessDissertation

Investigation on improvements of TCO processing on CdTe thin film solar cells.

Dana Sledz-2007-01-03-Digital Collections of Colorado (Colorado State University)
0PDF

TL;DRAbstract

Cadmium stannate (Cd 2 SnO 4 ) is a high performance TCO (transparent conducting oxide) that has been used in the fabrication of leading performance thin film CdTe solar cells.Several studies in this work were done to enhance the technical knowledgebase and industry processing of the Cd 2 SnO 4 : mechanical film properties, tantalum doping, pulsed-DC compared to RF plasma deposition, and modeling of the sputter system in Fluent and Comsol.Mechanical properties, determined from nanoindentation measurements, are valuable for flexible substrate design and topcoats.It was found films annealed in oxygen rather than nitrogen increases elastic modulus by 16% and hardness by 32%, but film electrical and optical properties were degraded.Tantalum was also investigated as an n-type dopant in Cd 2 SnO 4 with the goal of removing the labstandard CdS plate anneal, which is impractical for industrial manufacturing.Various doping levels, deposition temperatures, and post-anneals were done on sputtered

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper

Cadmium stannate (Cd 2 SnO 4 ) is a high performance TCO (transparent conducting oxide) that has been used in the fabrication of leading performance thin film CdTe solar cells.Several studies in this work were done to enhance the technical knowledgebase and industry processing of the Cd 2 SnO 4 : mechanical film properties, tantalum doping, pulsed-DC compared to RF plasma deposition, and modeling of the sputter system in Fluent and Comsol.Mechanical properties, determined from nanoindentation measurements, are valuable for flexible substrate design and topcoats.It was found films annealed in oxygen rather than nitrogen increases elastic modulus by 16% and hardness by 32%, but film electrical and optical properties were degraded.Tantalum was also investigated as an n-type dopant in Cd 2 SnO 4 with the goal of removing the labstandard CdS plate anneal, which is impractical for industrial manufacturing.Various doping levels, deposition temperatures, and post-anneals were done on sputtered

Keywords

Thin film solar cellMaterials scienceCadmium telluride photovoltaicsThin filmOptoelectronicsOpticsEnvironmental scienceNanotechnology

Chat

Click to start Chat