Stability aspects in CdTe/CdS solar cells

Performance of Photovoltaics Under Actual Operating Conditions

“…It was previously found that open-circuit conditions affected cell degradation during accelerated ageing for different CdTe cell types (Powell et al, 1996). In addition, impurity diffusion and changes in doping profiles may affect device stability (Batzner et al, 2004;Degrave et al, 2001), but the industry has resolved this problem by using special alloys. CIGS has a flexible structure that enhances its tolerance to chemical changes and because of this it has been previously argued that copper atoms do not pose stability problems for CIGS cells (Guillemoles et al, 2000).…”

Development of thin‐film Cu(In,Ga)Se2 and CdTe solar cells

“…Currently, these polycrystalline compound semiconductors solar cells are attracting considerable interest for space applications, because proton and electron irradiation tests of CIGS and CdTe solar cells have proven that their stability against particle irradiation is superior to Si or III-V solar cells. 7 Moreover, lightweight and flexible solar cells can yield a high specific power (W/kg) and open numerous possibilities for a variety of applications. As shown in Figure 1, thin-film solar cells based on CdTe or chalcopyrite absorbers can be grown in 'superstrate' or 'substrate' configurations.…”

Thin films CdS/CdTe solar cells with different activation processes base layer

“…It indirectly testifies that under annealing in freon the solid solutions at the boundary of CdS-CdTe are formed less intensively. Under standard chloride treatment, the presence of sufficient quantity of chlorine at the interface boundary leads to diffusion of sulfur in CdTe layer, which promotes formation of solid solutions [15]. The availability of chlorine at the interface boundary is conditioned by the fact that, under chloride treatment of the cadmium chloride layer deposited on surface of cadmium telluride, the subsequent annealing promotes intensive grain boundary diffusion of chlorine into the region of interface boundary CdS-CdTe, when recrystallization front moves.…”