Abstract
The possibility of forming thin-film two-phase compositions CdxPb1-xS/Cd1−δS using chemical bath deposition from aqueous media with adding various cadmium salts has been demonstrated. The crystal structure, chemical composition, morphology, and the band gap were studied by the X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, elemental analysis, Auger and Raman spectroscopy, and diffuse reflectance measurements. The formation of a CdxPb1−xS/Cd1−δS substitutional solid solution phase in well-faceted crystallites on the substrate of an X-ray amorphous CdS phase was experimentally shown. The observed difference in the composition of the films deposited with adding different cadmium salts is the result of the effect of the nucleophilicity of the anionic component of these salts on the kinetics of thiourea decomposition. The results demonstrate the possibility of forming thin-film two-phase compositions or heterostructures on the base of cadmium and lead sulfides in one technological stage using chemical bath deposition, which can be important for the creation of solar cells.
Highlights
For modern solar energy, the most interesting objects are thin-film solar cells in which absorbing layers are based on CdxPb1−xS substitutional solid solutions that is caused by their semiconducting properties
The results demonstrate the possibility of forming thin-film two-phase compositions or heterostructures on the base of cadmium and lead sulfides in one technological stage by using chemical bath deposition, which can be important for the creation of solar cells
As a result of complex comparative studies using the methods of X-ray diffraction, energydispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, Auger, Raman, and diffuse reflectance spectroscopies, the thin-film two-phase CdxPb1 xS/Cd1- S compositions chemically deposited using cadmium acetate, nitrate and sulfate were studied
Summary
The most interesting objects are thin-film solar cells in which absorbing layers are based on CdxPb1−xS substitutional solid solutions that is caused by their semiconducting properties. A model of the multiple bandgap solar cells was proposed in [4], which were based on CdxPb1−xS alloy nanowires of varying composition and delivered the efficiency higher than 40% As it is shown in literature, there are different methods for producing CdxPb1-xS films such as vacuum evaporation technique [5] and spray pyrolisis [6], method of ion-exchange substitution [7], sol-gel technology [8] or chemical bath deposition (CBD) from aqueous solutions [9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. A similar result was obtained in [15], where two-phase layers containing 2-8 mol% of amorphous CdS phase in addition to CdxPb1−xS solid solution were deposited on various substrates (silicon, sitall, ITO coating, glass). The difference in the type of conductivity and photovoltaic properties of the phases formed in this case indicates the prospects for the creation of solar cells on their basis
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