Highly Crystalline and Stoichiometric Growth of CdTe by Cost-Effective Hydrothermal Technique

CdTe powder samples have been synthesized using a hydrothermal approach, employing cadmium acetate and tellurium dioxides as sources of Cd and Te, respectively. NaBH 4 was utilized as the reducing agent, and double-distilled water was used as the solvent in the synthesis process. The effect of annealing on the synthesized samples was investigated. The samples have been characterized by x-ray powder diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The electrical properties (current–voltage and capacitance–voltage) of the as-prepared and annealed CdTe pellets were investigated. These findings indicate that annealing can lead to improvements in crystallinity, crystallite size, and electrical conductance. This paper presents a simple, cost-effective, and versatile method for producing significant amounts of CdTe nanostructure powders with properties suitable for use in the fabrication of CdS/CdTe solar cells.