Characterization Of Cdte Nanoparticles Fabricated By Pulsed Electron Deposition Technique At Different Ablation Parameters

Telluride (CdTe) is a front-runner photovoltaic (PV) material because it has already attained efficiencies above 16%. The fabrication of CdTe nanoparticles has aroused considerable interest because of their potential application as active layer in organic/inorganic hybrid solar cells. They can also be used for sensitisation of wide band gap semiconductors. In this works we explore pulsed electron beam deposition (PED) technique to fabricate CdTe nanoparticles. Two ablation parameters, namely background gas pressure and electron energy were varied to investigate their effects on the nanoparticle formation. AFM and optical transmission measurements indicate that we have fabricated CdTe nanocrystalline films exhibiting quantum confinement effect. These films contain scattered nanoparticles with diameters varying from 40 nm to 500 nm, which contribute to the optical absorption near the bulk bandgap energy. However, increasing the background pressure to 19 m Torr improves the nanocrystalline film uniformity.