Effects of thiourea concentration on CdS thin films grown by chemical bath deposition for CdTe solar cells

Abstract We study the effects of thiourea concentration on CdS thin films deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD), submitted to post-thermal treatments of CdCl 2 , and its effect on the characteristics of CdS/CdTe solar cells. We compare these cells with similar ones fabricated with CdS-films grown by Close Space Vapor Transport (CSVT). The CBD-CdS cells shows higher open circuit voltage ( V oc ) and fill factor (FF), while the short circuit current remains with little change, as the ratio of S to Cd in the CBD solution goes from 1 to 5. This dependence changes when there is a variation of the CBD-CdS layer thickness. We have obtained cells with more than 12% efficiency when the CdS layers are deposited by the best CBD condition (S/Cd=5) as compared to the best cells with CdS layers prepared by CSVT that had 11% efficiencies. Other measurements such as spectral response were performed and their results were correlated to the I–V characteristics of the solar cells so that the best performances of CBD-CdS solar cells are explained in terms of the chemical composition of this layer.