Interface study of ITO/ZnO and ITO/SnO2complex transparent conductive layers and their effect on CdTe solar cells

Abstract

Transparent ITO/ZnO and ITO/SnO2 complex conductive layers were prepared by DC- and RF-magnetron sputtering. Their structure and optical and electronic performances were studied by XRD, UV/Vis Spectroscopy, and four-probe technology. The interface characteristic and band offset of the ITO/ZnO, ITO/SnO2, and ITO/CdS were investigated by Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy (UPS) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), and the energy band diagrams have also been determined. The results show that ITO/ZnO and ITO/SnO2 films have good optical and electrical properties. The energy barrier those at the interface of ITO/ZnO and ITO/SnO2 layers are almost 0.4 and 0.44 eV, which are lower than in ITO/CdS heterojunctions (0.9 eV), which is beneficial for the transfer and collection of electrons in CdTe solar cells and reduces the minority carrier recombination at the interface, compared to CdS/ITO. The effects of their use in CdTe solar cells were studied by AMPS-1D software simulation using experiment values obtained from ZnO, ITO, and SnO2. From the simulation, we confirmed the increase of E ff, FF, V oc, and I sc by the introduction of ITO/ZnO and ITO/SnO2 layers in CdTe solar cells. © 2013 Tingliang Liu et al.