Near Infrared Laser Annealing of CdTe and in-situ Measurement of the Evolution of Structural and Optical Properties
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4947186
Abstract
The high performance of polycrystalline CdTe thin film solar cells is enabled by annealing in the presence of Cl. This process is typically carried out for tens of minutes resulting in reduction of defect states within the bandgap among other beneficial effects. In this work, we investigate laser annealing as a means of rapidly annealing CdTe using a continuous wave sub-bandgap 1064 nm laser. The partial transmission of the beam allows us to monitor the annealing process in-situ and in real time. We find that optoelectronic and structural changes occur through two distinct kinetic processes resulting in the removal of deep defects and twinned regions, respectively. A multilayer optical model including surface roughness is used to interpret both the in-situ transmission as well as ex-situ reflectivity measurements. These experiments demonstrate beneficial material changes resulting from sub-bandgap laser-driven CdCl2 treatment of CdTe in minutes, which is an important step towards accelerating the processing of the CdTe absorber layer.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Journal of Applied Physics, v. 119, issue 16, art. 165305
Scholar Commons Citation
Simonds, Brian J.; Misra, Sudhajit; Paudel, Naba; Vandewal, Koen; Salleo, Alberto; Ferekides, Christos; and Scarpulla, Michael A., "Near Infrared Laser Annealing of CdTe and in-situ Measurement of the Evolution of Structural and Optical Properties" (2015). Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications. 39.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/ege_facpub/39
