CdTe thin film solar cells by pulsed electron deposition

In this paper we present a fabrication process of complete CdTe thin-film solar cells where the CdTe absorber layer is made by pulsed electron deposition (PED) method. PED is a high-density pulsed energy thin film deposition system that allows high-energy growth at lower substrate temperatures. In order to analyze and optimize the fabrication process we started from our baseline where CdTe is deposited in a vacuum chamber and then annealed after CdCl2 deposition (by dipping in methanol solution). Cells with CdTe absorbers made by PED and by vacuum evaporation have been compared in terms of electrical and physical properties. Efficiency for thin CdTe devices demonstrates that PED allows fabricating a very compact and dense film