Effects of lead metal and annealing methods on low resistance contact formation of polycrystalline CdTe thin film

다결정 CdTe박막의 저저항 접축을 위한 배선금속 및 열처리방법의 효과에 관한 연구

Polycrystalline CdTe thin film has been studied for photovoltaic application due to the 1.45 eV band gap energy ideal for solar energy conversion and high absorption coefficient. The formation of low resistance contact to p-CdTe is difficult because of large work function(>5.5eV). Common methods for ohmic contact to p-CdTe are to form a p+ region under the contact by in-diffusion of contact material to reduce the barrier height and modify a p-CdTe surface layer using chemical treatment. In this study, the surface chemical treatment of p CdTe was carried out by H$\_$3/PO$\_$4/+HNO$\_$3/ or K$\_$2/Cr$\_$2/O$\_$7/+H$\_$2/SO$\_$4/ solution to provide a Te-rich surface. And various thin film contact materials such as Cu, Au, and Cu/Au were deposited by E-beam evaporation to form ohmic contact to p-CdTe. After the metallization, post annealing was performed by oven heat treatment at 150.deg. C or by RTA(Rapid Thermal Annealing) at 250-350.deg. C. Surface chemical treatments of p-CdTe thin film improved metal/p-CdTe interface properties and post heat treatment resulted in low contact resistivity to p-CdTe.Of the various contact metal, Cu/Au and Cu show low contact resistance after oven and RTA post-heat treatments, respectively.