Cadmium Telluride Thin Film Solar Panels

Cadmium telluride photovoltaics describes a photovoltaic technology that is based on the use of cadmium telluride in a thin semiconductor layer designed to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity.

Cadmium telluride thin film solar panels.

Copper indium gallium selenide cigs. First solar is an american company that works in the cadmium telluride solar panel manufacturing space. On a lifecycle basis cdte pv has the smallest carbon footprint lowest water use and shortest energy payback time of any current photo voltai. Cdte thin film panels are made from several thin layers.

The company solyndra now. Solar photovoltaic technology that is based on cadmium is considered as a thin film technology due to its active layers which are just a few microns thick or about a 10 diameter of human hair. Cadmium telluride cdte photovoltaics or also called cadmium telluride solar cell is a kind of photovoltaic pv technology that can produce electricity from sunlight using a thin film of compound cadmium telluride to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity. Cadmium telluride cdte is a stable crystalline compound formed from cadmium and tellurium which is used for manufacturing cdte thin film solar panels in whole lifespan cdte pv has the smallest carbon footprint lowest water use and shortest energy payback time then conventional solar technologies the usage of rare materials may become a limiting factor to the industrial scalability of cdte technology in the mid term future.

This structure is similar to the heterojunction in cigs cells. One main energy producing layer made from the compound cadmium telluride and surrounding layers for electricity conduction and collection. Cadmium telluride solar cells use low cost manufacturing technology to produce low cost cells. As with most thin film solar technologies carrier collection is accomplished by drift or field assisted.

The most common cdte solar cells consist of a simple p n heterojunction structure containing a p doped cdte layer matched with an n doped cadmium sulfide cds layer which acts as a window layer. Thin film solar panels and toxicity cadmium telluride.