Thickness dependence study of inorganic CdTe/CdSe solar cells fabricated from colloidal nanoparticle solutions

The thickness dependence of cadmium telluride/cadmium selenide (CdTe/CdSe)heterojunctions is studied in order to maximize the performance of solar cells. The best overall performance of 3.02% efficiency at air mass 1.5 was achieved from a device with 300 nanometers (nm)of sintered CdTe and 100 nm CdSe, using indium tin oxide and evaporated aluminum as the electrodes. In contrast to thin film CdTe solar cells, the power efficiency was strongly dependent on the thickness of the nanoparticle layer, indicating that the device efficiency is limited by charge transport. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3380589]