In order to meet the requirement for the development of a more environment-friendly device structure for polycrystalline CuInSe2-based thin-film solar cells, Zn compound buffer layers for use as an alternative to CdS buffer layers have been fabricated by a chemical-bath deposition (CBD) method which is believed to be cost-effective and applicable to large-area deposition. CIS-based thin-film solar cells with a Zn(O, OH)
x
buffer layer showed a relatively low efficiency of about 10% because of the difficulty in the reduction of the amount of OH- ions in the buffer layer. By adding a sulfur source to the CBD solution as a new approach to reduce the amount of OH- ions, a dramatic decrease in the content of hydroxide in the buffer layer and the formation of a better heterointerface between the CIS-based thin-film absorber and the ZnO window layer were achieved simultaneously for the first time. The application of Zn(O, S, OH)
x
as a buffer layer to CIS-based thin-film solar cells led to the higher efficiency of 12.8% on the active area of 3.2 cm2. Zn(O, S, OH)
x
fabricated by a CBD method was demonstrated to be a promising alternative to CdS and a more environment-friendly buffer layer, although further investigation is required to understand the mechanisms of the irradiation effect.
Direct epitaxial growth on silicon has advantages when fabricating monolithic integrated infrared focal-plane arrays. We demonstrated that both (111)A and (111)B oriented CdTe layers can be grown on (100) Si substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy. The surface morphology of the (111)A layer was rough, while that of the (111)B layer was smooth. The key determining polarity is the substrate temperature during preadsorption of Te2 flux. We found a polarity transition at 450 to 500 °C, and (111)B layers grow above that temperature.
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