Brief review of cadmium telluride-based photovoltaic technologies

摘要: Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is the most commercially successful thin-film photovoltaic technology. Development of CdTe as a solar cell material dates back to early 1980s when ∼10% efficient devices were demonstrated. Implementation better quality glass, more transparent conductive oxides, introduction high-resistivity film under CdS junction-partner, higher deposition temperatures, and improved Cl-treatment, doping, contacting approaches yielded >16% cells in 2000s. Around same time period, use photoresist plug monolithic integration process facilitated demonstra- tion first 11% module. The dramatic advancements device effi- ciencies made during 2013 2014 frame small-area conversion efficiency was raised 20% range champion module 17% reported. technology attractive terms its limited life-cycle greenhouse gas heavy metal emissions, small carbon footprint, short energy payback times. Limited Te availability challenge for growth this unless utilization rates are greatly enhanced along with efficiencies. © Authors. Published by SPIE Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction work whole part requires full attribution original publication, including DOI. (DOI: 10.1117/1.JPE.4.040996)