Effect of CuPc and PEDOT:PSS as hole transport layers in planar heterojunction CdS/CdTe solar cell

Abstract

This paper presents the fabrication and photovoltaic performance of new architecture based planar heterojunction CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells which were employed with two hole transport layers (PEDOT:PSS as HTL1 and CuPc as HTL2). The reported solar cells were fabricated through various deposition techniques such as sputtering, thermal evaporation, spin coating and characterized by FESEM, AFM, XPS, UPS and AM 1.5 solar simulator. The interfacial layer growth and chemical state identification of the deposited thin films were studied by cross-sectional FESEM and XPS techniques. The band bending occurs between absorbing and transporting layer helps to inject the excited charge carriers effectively into electrode that was explained using UPS analysis. The present work intends to explain the role of additional window layer (TiO<inf>2</inf>), buffer layer (CdS) and hole transporting layers (PEDOT:PSS and CuPc) in the novel device architecture. Further, these findings will offer new research directions to address the double hole transport (back contact) layers selection concept in CdS/CdTe heterojunction based solar cells. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd.