This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium, a three-year consortium to enhance U.S. technology leadership and competitiveness in CdTe photovoltaics (PV).

Sivananthan Laboratories Inc., a high-tech business incubator and national leader in crystalline cadmium telluride (CdTe)-based solar cell technology, announced today a record high arsenic dopant activation for crystalline CdTe produced by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium, a three-year consortium to enhance U.S. technology leadership and competitiveness in CdTe photovoltaics (PV). One part of this project aims to improve the electrical and optical properties of crystalline CdTe. The goal is to provide insight into the present limitations of polycrystalline CdTe and CdTe-based materials that are used in commercial high-volume PV modules produced in the United States and elsewhere.

The present result reports electrical activation greater than 70% for an elemental arsenic concentration of ~1 x 1017 cm-3, resulting in hole concentrations of ~7 x 1016 cm-3 in single-crystal CdTe grown by MBE. This result surpasses the previous record of 50% electrical activation with hole concentrations of 5 x 1016 cm-3. The achievement attests to both improved control of arsenic incorporation into the CdTe matrix during the MBE growth and an efficient, novel post-deposition activation processes.

This result is important because improving the electrical properties of CdTe-based layers is a key element to improving the performance of CdTe-based PV modules. At present, CdTe-based PV modules represent the largest PV module industry in the United States. It is the current commercial PV technology with the highest ratio of energy output during use to energy input during production, making it the shortest energy payback time technology.

This project was led by Dr. Ramesh Dhere, who commented, "This has been a challenging task and is the result of teamwork led by Alexander Goldstone and the expert advice of Dr. Eric Colegrove of DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), building on the expansive MBE expertise at Sivananthan Laboratories and its affiliates." Dr. Paul Boieriu, the program manager at Sivananthan Laboratories, added, "Such an achievement is remarkable since it enables higher solar energy conversion efficiency and manufacturing cost reductions without risking the long-term module durability of CdTe-based PV, enhancing U.S. competitiveness and decreasing the levelized cost of energy."

Sivananthan Laboratories is working toward applying these recent findings to the development of next-generation absorbers for solar cells with higher PV conversion efficiencies. It is believed the process control understanding that enabled this recent advancement in CdTe can be adapted to improve dopant activation in CdSeTe and other CdTe-based alloys.

Sivananthan Laboratories is an independent company that was formed in September 2009. The mission of Sivananthan Laboratories is to nurture and foster the development of cutting-edge research in areas pertaining to energy and national security, as related to physical, economic, and socioeconomic development.

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