CdTe solar cells have recently reached its highest conversion efficiencies, comparable to CulnGaSe(2) and Si devices. One of the key factors for the success of these devices is the so-called "activation" treatment, which typically consists in depositing a CdCl2 film on the CdTe absorber layer and in a subsequent annealing in air or nitrogen atmosphere. Nevertheless CdCl2 is a carcinogenic and water-soluble compound; for this reason recent studies have found MgCl2 as a good alternative. In this work we have studied devices (exceeding 14% efficiency) prepared by low-substrate temperature CdTe deposition and activated with MgCl2 treatment (applied by wet deposition). The devices were characterized by means of current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, drive level capacitance profiling and admittance spectroscopy techniques. Carrier concentration and also concentration and distribution of shallow and deep defects are presented and compared with data obtained from analogous devices but activated with the standard CdCl2. Despite CdTe layers treated with the two different processes exhibit similar structural properties, the distribution of deep and shallow defects results to be different and moreover admittance spectroscopy technique reveals the presence of different defects, at 344 and 358 meV, which are present only in MgCl2 treatment case. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.