Synthesis and characterization of CdTe thin film on FTO by electrodeposition technique for CdTe/CdS solar cells

Abstract

Abstract In this work, the synthesis of the CdTe thin film (absorber layer) on fluorine-doped Tin oxide (FTO) substrate by electrodeposition technique of CdTe/CdS solar cell has been presented. As a result of the superior efficiency in energy conversion by absorbing energy in a broad range of the solar spectrum, thin film CdS/CdTe solar cells have been paid attention worldwide as a potential candidate for photovoltaics (PV). The electrodeposition (ED) technique is suitable for the synthesis of CdTe material due to its ease, low cost, scalability and manufacturability. Usually, the quality of these deposited thin films depends on several growth parameters, and the type of conducting glass substrate plays a crucial role. CdTe material grown up on the top of the FTO coated glass substrate having dimensions 75mm* 25mm*1mm and was characterized for its optical properties by UV-Vis spectrometer (UV-Vis), Photoluminescence (PL) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR). XRD result confirms the cubic crystalline character of the deposited material. The band gap of CdTe film estimated using Tauc’s plot is found to be 1.5eV. It is expected that this article will enrich the features of CdTe/CdS devices for solar energy conversion and stimulate further innovative research interest on this interesting topic.