Inorganic Photovoltaic Devices Fabricated Using Nanocrystal Spray Deposition

Soluble inorganic nanocrystals offer a potential route to the fabrication of all-inorganic devices using solution deposition techniques. Spray processing offers several advantages over the more common spin- and dip-coating procedures, including reduced material loss during fabrication, higher sample throughput, and deposition over a larger area. The primary difference observed, however, is an overall increase in the film roughness. In an attempt to quantify the impact of this morphology change on the devices, we compare the overall performance of spray-deposited versus spin-coated CdTe-based Schottky junction solar cells and model their dark current-voltage characteristics. Spray deposition of the active layer results in a power conversion efficiency of 2.3 +/- 0.3% with a fill factor of 45.7 +/- 3.4%, V-oc of 0.39 +/- 0.06 V, and J(sc) of 13.3 +/- 3.0 mA/cm(2) under one sun illumination.