Effects of morphologies of (Cd+Te) powders on the properties of sintered CdS/CdTe solar cells

Polycrystalline CdS/CdTe solar cells have been prepared by coating and sintering a CdS slurry and a (Cd+Te) slurry. CdS layers were first formed on borosilicate glass substrates at 600°C in nitrogen and then CdTe layers were formed on the sintered CdS layers at 625°C in nitrogen. The (Cd+Te) slurry contained (Cd+Te) powders mixed in a ball mill for 12–220 h instead of more expensive CdTe powders. The shape of cadmium particles changed from spherical to plate-like and the diameter of the plate-shaped particles became smaller as the ball-milling time increased. In addition, a compound CdTe started to form during a long milling time. The sintered CdTe layers were more compact as the diameter of plate-shaped cadmium particles decreased. However, cracks developed in the sintered CdTe layer when the diameter was small ( 2 m). The efficiency of sintered CdS/CdTe solar cells increased with decreasing particle diameter and then decreased with further decrease in particle diameter. The highest efficiency of 12.1% was achieved using a mixture of (Cd+Te) powders which had plate-shaped cadmium particles with a diameter of 5 m. The results suggest that high-efficiency sintered CdS/CdTe solar cells can be fabricated by using CdTe slurry from the mixture of (Cd+Te) powders with an inexpensive ball-milling process.