Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T15:35:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_6403_Marcos Vinícius Altoé Vescovi.pdf: 1300065 bytes, checksum: 6e2c0046d766b07baa50393a10676b68 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-12 / O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os efeitos da exposição por 30 dias à CdCl2 100 mg L-1 sobre a distribuição tecidual deste metal e a consequência sobre a contratilidade miocárdica. Foram utilizados ratos Wistar separados aleatoriamente em dois grupos: controle e tratado. A pressão arterial foi mensurada semanalmente no decorrer da exposição. Ao final do tratamento os animais foram anestesiados para avaliação hemodinâmica e sacrificados para avaliação, in vitro, da contratilidade miocárdica e as amostras teciduais e cardíacas foram encaminhadas para análise do teor de cádmio através da técnica de Espectrometria de Absorção Atômica. A concentração sanguínea de cádmio no grupo tratado foi de, aproximadamente, 4 µg dL-1, valor inferior ao índice biológico permitido por leis mundiais vigentes e, como previsto com base em literatura, os principais sítios de deposição do metal foram os rins e o fígado. Desde a primeira semana de exposição, a pressão arterial do grupo tratado mostrou-se elevada e assim permaneceu ao longo das semanas seguintes. A avaliação hemodinâmica evidenciou o aumento da pressão arterial sistólica (Controle: 114 ± 5 vs Tratado: 127 ± 3 mmHg), da diastólica (Controle: 63 ± 2 vs Tratado: 81 ± 4 mmHg), da ventricular esquerda (Controle: 127 ± 2 vs Tradado: 140 ± 4 mmHg) e da frequência cardíaca (Controle: 333 ± 8 vs Tratado: 377 ± 7 mmHg) e, uma redução da pressão diastólica final do ventrículo direito (Controle: 6,4 ± 0,8 vs Tratado: 4,1 ± 0,3 mmHg). In vitro, o tratamento com cádmio não alterou o estado inotrópico (força contrátil e derivadas temporais de força). No entanto, os resultados sugerem alterações no ciclo de cálcio (Ca2+) no cardiomiócito. Houve uma redução no influxo de Ca2+ transarcolemal, e menor receptação de Ca2+ pelo retículo sarcoplasmático do ventrículo direito. Sendo assim, é sugestivo que apesar do cádmio reduzir a eficiência do retículo sarcoplasmático e prejudicar o influxo de cálcio transarcolemal, o miócito dispõe de mecanismos que regulam o inotropismo.

One of the most critical processes in CdTe device production is the activation process induced by cadmium chloride (CdCl2). In this thesis, the CdCl2 treatment has been optimized using both wet and thermal evaporation methods for close-spaced sublimated (CSS) devices. Maximum cell efficiencies of η=7.24% and η=9.37% respectively have been measured without the use of copper in the back contact. A clear link has been established between treatment conditions, electrical measurements and microstructure, where parameters such as the dwell annealing temperature for evaporated CdCl2 and the concentration of the solution for the wet treatment are varied. It has been shown that a certain concentration of chlorine is necessary to remove high densities of planar defects present in the as-deposited material. The CSS CdTe is deposited in a dual layer structure with smaller grains at the CdS interface and with larger grains developing towards the surface. The defects are initially removed in the smaller grains at the CdS interface. When the temperature and concentration increase, more grains recrystallize with the total removal of stacking faults. At a critical temperature and Cl concentration, the entire CdTe film recrystallizes into large grains with no stacking faults. The CdS grains and the interface with the CdTe also changes with sulphur migration into the CdTe. The results indicate that the recrystallization actually initiates at the CdS/CdTe junction. This has been observed clearly for both sputtered and electrodeposited CdTe. The recrystallization process gradually propagates towards the surface as the concentration of the CdCl2 solution in methanol is increased. This observation is not intuitive because the solution is initially in contact with the outer surface of the CdTe. Finally, the use of different chlorine containing compounds has been used as an alternative to CdCl2 and to further understand the role of chlorine in the process. All the samples treated with Cl containing compounds have shown the elimination of the dual layer structure and the recrystallization of the small grains at the interface. Tellurium tetrachloride (TeCl4) and zinc chloride (ZnCl2) have shown the most promising increase in conversion efficiency. The maximum efficiencies measured using these two solutions were 4.58% and 5.05% respectively. TeCl4 has shown an encouraging open circuit voltage of 594 mV, while the open circuit voltage using ZnCl2 was 494 mV. However, TeCl4 has shunting issues and low current density (17.9 mA/cm2), whereas ZnCl2 has the promising current density of 20.8 mA/cm2. This work has shown that alternatives to CdCl2 treatment exist, however further work is required to optimize the performance of these treatments to enable them to be competitive. Advanced materials characterization techniques are essential to understand and then enhance photovoltaic cell and module performance. New and improved tools are being developed to deliver fast, accurate and non-destructive characterization. One of these tools is coherence correlation interferometry (CCI) which has been developed by Taylor Hobson Ltd. This is a particular variant of scanning white light interferometry used for surface metrology with a high vertical resolution. In this thesis, it has been shown that the capability of the CCI can be extended to perform accurate thin film thickness measurements using the Helix Complex Field (HFC) function. The main attraction of this technique for thin film PV applications is that it allows surface metrology and thin film thickness measurements to be obtained simultaneously from the same area of the sample in the same system. The results obtained from CCI on a variety of materials, used in thin film PV, correlate very well the results obtained from other techniques such as ellipsometry, electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The CCI has also been used in the optimization of a new one-step interconnect process (OSI) for thin film PV module interconnects.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 71 pages. / Thesis (M.S.E.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The CdTe solar cell is a leading candidate for cost-effective thin-film solar cells having demonstrated small area cell effciencies of 16.4%. A Key issue associated with CdTe thin film photovoltaic modules is the analysis of degradation behavior of the device. The analysis is complicated as changes due to degradation may be reversible. Solar cell measurement techniques were used to understand the changes in device parameters after light soaking for 1000 hours. An automated measurement setup was implemented as part of this thesis work. The main objective of this thesis was to study the effect of CdCl&esc;b2&esc;s heat treatment on the device stability. The temperature for this heat treatment was varied from 360oC to 400oC. Cells were stressed under illumination at both short circuit and open circuit conditions. It was found that the increase CdCl&esc;b2&esc;s heat treatment temperature slowed down the degradation rate.This was true for both short and open circuit stress conditions. Also short circuit stress condition slowed down the degradation of the device when compared with the open circuit condition. It became evident that the recombination current mainly got affected when the device was said to be degraded. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Textured SnO2 films as TCO have been investigated to determine the effect of surface roughness on the performance of CdS/CdTe solar cells. Film roughness was controlled by varying the substrate temperature. Characterization of the SnO2 films has also carried out using AFM measurements. It was found that increase in substrate temperature results in increased roughness of the film. A series of cells were fabricated with different CdS thicknesses to determine the combined effect of SnO2 roughness and CdS thickness. As a part of fabrication process, cells were subjected to different post deposition treatments. It was observed that roughness seems to be critical when CdS remained in the final device is thin. The performance of CdS/CdTe devices fabricated was characterized using J-V and spectral response measurements. It was found that cells with initial CdS thickness of 1000 showed better performance than those with thicker CdS for the same roughness of SnO2. Conversion efficiency of 13.37% was achieved by increasing the SnO2 roughness and depositing thicker CdS initially.

The CdTe solar cell is a leading candidate for cost-effective thin-film solar cells having demonstrated small area cell effciencies of 16.4%. A Key issue associated with CdTe thin film photovoltaic modules is the analysis of degradation behavior of the device. The analysis is complicated as changes due to degradation may be reversible. Solar cell measurement techniques were used to understand the changes in device parameters after light soaking for 1000 hours. An automated measurement setup was implemented as part of this thesis work. The main objective of this thesis was to study the effect of CdCl2 heat treatment on the device stability. The temperature for this heat treatment was varied from 360oC to 400oC. Cells were stressed under illumination at both short circuit and open circuit conditions. It was found that the increase CdCl2 heat treatment temperature slowed down the degradation rate.This was true for both short and open circuit stress conditions. Also short circuit stress condition slowed down the degradation of the device when compared with the open circuit condition. It became evident that the recombination current mainly got affected when the device was said to be degraded.

CdTe films were deposited by sputtering technique and were then carried out by CdCl2 treatment. The SEM micrographs show that the grain sizes of the as-deposited CdTe film were normally ranged from 50 nm to 100 nm, and they were recrystallized after CdCl2 treatment to obtain the grain sizes in the range of 1~3 £gm. A new device structure for CdTe thin-film solar cells has been proposed to exceed the cell efficiency of current record. The superstrate structure with the layer sequence of Glass/AZO/ZnO/CdS/CdTe/CI(G)S/Mo compared with the conventional device structure of Glass/FTO/CdS/CdTe/metal contact would have the following advantages:(1) a highly conductive AZO layer combined with a thin undoped ZnO layer will have higher optical transmission than that of FTO; (2) the use of p-type CIS under the CdTe layer with the same conductivity type can extend the light absorption to longer wavelength range (the band gaps of CdTe and CIS are 1.45eV and 1.04eV, respectively); (3) the proper addition of Ga to CIS may form CIGS quaternary compounds with a bandgap gradient which produce an electric field in the neutral region of a p-n junction to reduce the carrier recombination; (4) the use of Mo contact to CI(G)S is quite stable as compared with the metal contact normally used for p-CdTe. AMPS-1D simulation had been applied to evaluate the newly designed device structure and the results indicated a great improvement in device performance, i.e. the cell efficiency could exceed 20%. The I-V curve of a CdTe solar cell using the new device structure showed a nearly linear characteristic indicating the failure to form a p-n junction. We speculated that Cu might diffuse through the CdTe layer to the depletion region of the p-n junction formed at the CdS/CdTe interface. This would cause the junction failure. Based on the calculation on the Cu diffusion during the deposition of CIS layer at different temperatures even as low as 150˚C, it always had the chance to diffuse through the CdTe layer. An alternate device fabrication process was the use of the substrate structure for preparing CdTe solar cells, i.e. Glass/Mo/CIS/CdTe/CdS/ZnO/AZO/Al. However, the desired diode behavior was not observed until the thickness of CdTe layer was cut down to 10 nm. The electrical properties of that particular solar cell is the following:Voc=0.36V, Isc=4.991mA/cm2, F.F.=25.3%, efficiency=0.472%. It is probably that the lattice mismatch between CIS and CdTe is large that may cause the formation of interfacial defects and the reduction of photo excited carriers through the recombination processes. The annealing processes had been conducted in order to promote the interdiffusion between CdTe and CIS and minimize the lattice mismatch. However, the films peered off after annealing. Further experiments should be done to solve this problem.

No description available.

Thin film cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology is the most important competitor for silicon (Si) based solar cells. Pulsed direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering is a new technique has been developed for thin film CdTe deposition. This technique is industrially scalable and provides uniform coating. It is also possible to deposit thin films at low substrate temperatures. A series of experiments are presented for the optimisation of the cadmium chloride (CdCl2) activation process. Thin film CdTe solar cells require CdCl2 activation process to improve conversion efficiencies. The role of this activation process is to increase the grain size by recrystallisation and to remove stacking faults. Compaan and Bohn [1] used the radio-frequency (RF) sputtering technique for CdTe solar cell deposition and they observed small blisters on CdTe layer surface. They reported that blistering occurred after the CdCl2 treatment during the annealing process. Moreover, void formation was observed in the CdTe layer after the CdCl2 activation process. Voids at the cadmium sulphide (CdS)/CdTe junction caused delamination hence quality of the junction is poor. This issue has been known for more than two decades but the mechanisms of the blister formation have not been understood. One reason may be the stress formation during CdTe solar cells deposition or during the CdCl2 treatment. Therefore, the stress analysis was performed to remove the defects observed after the CdCl2 treatment. This was followed by the rapid thermal annealing to isolate the CdCl2 effect by simply annealing. Small bubbles observed in the CdTe layer which is the first step of the blister formation. Using high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), it has been discovered that argon (Ar) working gas trapped during the deposition process diffuses in the lattice which merge and form the bubbles during the annealing process and grow agglomeration mainly at interfaces and grain boundaries (GBs). Blister and void formation were observed in the CdTe devices after the CdCl2 treatment. Therefore, krypton (Kr), neon (Ne) gases were used as the magnetron working gas during the deposition of CdTe layer. The results presented in this thesis indicated that blister and void formation were still existing with the use of Kr an Ne. Xe, which has a higher atomic mass than Kr, Ne, Ar, Cd and Te, was used as the magnetron working gas and it resulted in surface blister and void free devices.