Study of the characterizationn of CdTe thin films prepared by the pulsed laser deposition technique with different laser energies

This research studied the effects of different laser energies on structural and optical properties. We prepared CdTe thin films by PLD technique using an Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm and different energies (400, 500, 600, and 700 mJ). The practical experiments were carried out at a temperature of 200 °C. XRD results revealed that all the prepared thin films have polycrystalline structures and cubic systems with average crystalline sizes of 34, 42, 54, and 57 nm for 400, 500, 600, and 700 mJ, respectively. We observed that the optical energy gap of CdTe thin films decreases with the increase of laser energy (1.87–1.58 eV). The topography of the surfaces of CdTe thin films deposited on glass substrates was studied by the AFM technique, and it was shown that the average diameter of all CdTe films increases with increasing laser energies. The mentioned properties were studied for the application of this thin film as the absorber layer in constructing a solar cell.