A. Iribarren et al., Optical and structural evidence of the grain-boundary influence on the disorder of polycrystalline CdTe films, APPL PHYS L, 74(20), 1999, pp. 2957-2959
We report the linear behavior of the band-tail parameter as a function of t
he reciprocal of the grain size in polycrystalline CdTe. On the other hand,
the study of the full width at half maximum of the x-ray diffraction peak
shows a similar behavior, which indicates that the disorder increases as gr
ain size diminishes. A theoretical analysis justifies that the behavior is
ruled by the contribution of the grain-boundary traps, and the trap concent
ration is calculated. Both results constitute experimental evidences of the
grain-boundary disorder, which was quantified, and demonstrate that it is
caused by the extension of the grain- boundary effect into the grain. (C) 1
999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)04420-4].