Effects of CdCl2 treatment and annealing on CdS/SnO2/glass heterostructures for solar cells

Effects of CdCl2 post-growth treatments and annealing under different conditions on the surface and interface properties of CdS/SnO2/glass heterostructure were studied. CdS thin films were grown on SnO2-coated glass substrates for CdS/CdTe heterojunction solar cells by the solution growth technique. It was found that CdCl2 post-growth treatments and annealing enhanced the CdS-related XRD peaks, narrowed the CdS characteristic Raman bands, removed or depressed the disorder related Raman features, and improved the CdS film crystalline quality significantly, which are advantageous to the application in solar cells as a window layer material.