further intermix and react forming zn u2014 cu u2014 te compounds that have low resistivity cu u2014 te alloys are low bandgap low resistivity semiconductors zn u2014 te alloy is a large bandgap low resistivity semiconductor the presence of these materials at the back contact provides a low contact resistance as well as a reflector for photogenerated electrons as a result much thinner cdte films with thicknesses in the range of 0 5 1 microns as opposed to 2 6 microns in the prior art of fig1 may be fabricated using the contacting approach of the various embodiments of the present invention electron reflecting low resistivity ohmic contact allows fabrication of cells with over 10 efficiency even if the cdte absorber layer thickness is less than 1 micron benefits of using the zn u2014 cu alloy interface layer of the present invention may be understood by comparing this to some of the other approaches one method of making contact to a cdte film is to sputter deposit a znte layer on the cdte surface as described in u s pat no 5 909 632 this is then followed by deposition of a highly conductive contact layer such as c mo and ni this approach uses expensive znte targets and slow.