Comparison of CdTe thin film photovoltaic technologies

CdTe polycrystalline thin film solar cells are highly scalable devices, showing stable performance and high efficiencies. The high industrial potential of CdTe thin film solar cells has been demonstrated by the increase, in relatively short time, of the production from a few MW up to more than 200 MW per year. Highest efficiencies have been obtained by using close space sublimation (CSS) to grow CdTe. However, CdTe can be deposited with a large variety of deposition processes: in the past, some companies have successfully optimized other fabrication processes. In this paper an overview and comparison of the fabrication processes, with the different applications, will be presented