Recent technical advances in thin-film CdS/CdTe solar cells

CdS/CdTe solar cells have attracted attention recently for their potential as low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells of the future. It is because the CdTe layer (used for photoelectric conversion) has a bandgap energy of 1.51 eV, which corresponds well to sunlight spectra, and the direct transition type energy band structure enables formation of thinner films. We have already industrialized CdS/CdTe solar cells in mass production stage using a printing-sintering process, as large-area modules for electric power generation (Higuchi et al.,1993, Omura et al.,1991), and as cells for indoor applications (primarily in calculators, Suyama et al.,1986). However, this solar cell has a conversion efficiency of approximately 6%. Recently, there has been considerable research into thin-film CdS/CdTe solar cells which have a thinner CdS film formed by CVD or CBD (Britt et al., 1993) process, and thus are photosensitive to light with wavelengths of 500 nm or less. At present stage of our art, in solar cells formed by the CSS with a CdTe film on CVD CdS, a conversion efficiency of 15.05% has been obtained in cells with an area of 1 cm(2) (verified at JQA).