Intermediate band solar cells with ZnTe:Cr thin films grown on p-Si substrate by pulsed laser deposition

Low-cost, high efficiency solar cells are tremendous interests for the realization of a renewable and clean energy source. ZnTe based solar cells have a possibility of high efficiency with formation of an intermediated energy band structure by impurity doping. In this work, ZnO/ZnTe:Cr and ZnO/i-ZnTe structures were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. A pulsed (10 Hz) Nd:YAG laser operating at a wavelength of 266 nm was used to produce a plasma plume from an ablated a ZnTe target, whose density of laser energy was 10 J/cm2. The base pressure of the chamber was kept at approximately $4{\times}10-7Torr$. ZnTe:Cr and i-ZnTe thin films with thickness of 210 nm were grown on p-Si substrate, respectively, and then ZnO thin films with thickness of 150 nm were grown on ZnTe:Cr layer under oxygen partial pressure of 3 mTorr. Growth temperature of all the films was set to $250^{\circ}C$. For fabricating ZnO/i-ZnTe and ZnO/ZnTe:Cr solar cells, indium metal and Ti/Au grid patterns were deposited on back and front side of the solar cells by using thermal evaporator, respectively. From the fabricated ZnO/ZnTe:Cr and ZnO/i-ZnTe solar cell, dark currents were measured by using Keithley 2600. Solar cell parameters were obtained under Air Mass 1.5 Global solar simulator with an irradiation intensity of 100 mW/cm2, and then the photoelectric conversion efficiency values of ZnO/ZnTe:Cr and ZnO/i-ZnTe solar cells were measured at 1.5 % and 0.3 %, respectively.