Abstract
The photovoltaic performance of CdTe solar cells is mainly limited by low doping and short minority carrier lifetime. Group-V element doping and Se-alloying have a significant impact on tuning these fundamental CdTe properties. In this paper, we report the growth of p-type As-doped, Cd-rich CdTe1−xSex single crystals using metallic Cd as the solvent in the traveling-heater method. The structural and electrical properties of CdTe1−xSex are examined for different Se concentrations. CdTe1−xSex single crystals (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) with zincblende structure indicate homogeneous composition. The 1017 cm−3 As-doping activation efficiency can be maintained at close to 50% for x ≤ 0.2. Se alloying leads to bulk minority carrier lifetime exceeding 30 ns for samples doped near 1017 cm−3. These results help us to overcome the current roadblocks in device performance.
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Acknowledgments
A.N. acknowledges support from the JSPS for a Research Fellow Grant-in-Aid. At NREL, this work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) Agreement No. 34350 operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DEAC36- 08GO28308. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.
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Nagaoka, A., Nishioka, K., Yoshino, K. et al. Growth and Characterization of Arsenic-Doped CdTe1−xSex Single Crystals Grown by the Cd-Solvent Traveling Heater Method. J. Electron. Mater. 49, 6971–6976 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-020-08343-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-020-08343-z