Studies on the grain boundary effect in polycrystalline CdTe films using optical reflectance measurements

Abstract

The grain boundary effect in polycrystalline CdTe films deposited at various substrate temperatures has been studied critically. The grain boundary potential, the density of trap states at the boundary region and the carrier concentration in the films were obtained by an alternative technique that utilizes the reflectance measurements of the highly resistive films deposited on a nonabsorbing substrate. The barrier height in the CdTe films decreased from 0.34 to 0.2 eV as the grain size increased from 60 to 133 nm, owing to the increase in the deposition temperature from 373 to 523 K. Correspondingly, the density of trap states in the grain boundary region decreased from 1.63 × 10 13 to 6.15 × 10 12 cm −2.