NEW TEHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF SOLAR CELLS BASED ON CdTe THIN FILMS T. Potlog1, V. Fedorov1, P.

Dumitriu1 J. Hiie2, V. Mikli2,, V. Lughi3, V. Sergo3 1 Physics Department, Moldova State University, A. Mateevici str. 60, MD 2009 Chisinau Moldova 2 Department of Materials Science, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086 Tallinn Estonia 3 Department of Materials and Natural Resources, University of Trieste, 6a, via Valerio, 34127, Trieste, Italy Current effort to improve the efficiency of thin film solar cells based on CdTe is to use wider band gap buffer layers in order to allow more light to reach the junction, consequently improving the short wavelength response of cells and to exclude formation of solid solution CdTe1-xSx near CdS-CdTe interface with high resistivity and smaller band gap than that for CdS. In the present paper the study of structural, substructural and photoelectrical properties of glass/SnO2CdS/ZnSe/CdTe, glass/SnO2/ZnSe/CdTe and glass/SnO2/ZnSe:Zn/CdTe heterosystems will be investigated. ZnSe films were deposited by CSS. The deposition reactor of the films is identical to those used for CdTe and CdS. The source material is 99.999% pure ZnSe powder. The ZnSe films were deposited without any inert ambient gas, the source and substrate temperature ranges are 700-720C and 360-420C respectively. The thickness of the ZnSe was varied, since this layer was found to be uniform within 2-3% over the entire substrate area. Preliminary works indicate that the difference in the electron CdTe and ZnSe affinities leads to a discontinuity in the conduction band which impedes the transport of photo-generated electrons from the CdTe. It has also been suggested that inter-diffusion at the metallurgical interface of a heterojunction can decrease this discontinuity. Some authors have used ZnSe (Eg = 2.67 eV) and produced ZnSe/CdTe devices with efficiencies > 11%. In the present paper the three series of the samples were obtained: glass/SnO2/CdS/ZnSe/CdTe, glass/SnO2/ZnSe/CdTe and glass/SnO2/ZnSe:Zn/CdTe by close space sublimation method. The investigation of structural properties allowed us to compare growth peculiarities of solar cells with ZnSe layer deposited on glass, CdS and on glass/SnO2 substrates. It was determined that at high substrate temperatures (>360oC) films evaporated on sublayer have better structural properties than films deposited on glass substrate at the same growth conditions. Particularly, solid solutions on CdS/ZnSe and ZnSe:Zn/CdTe interfaces were detected. The incorporation of Zn at the interface between ZnSe and CdTe doubled short circuit current density. The saturation current, ideality factor, potential barrier height value and photovoltaic parameters will be determined by the analysis of the dark and illuminated current-voltage and capacitancevoltage characteristics.