Journal
APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE
Volume 493, Issue -, Pages 105-111Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2019.06.279
Keywords
CIAGS absorber; Rapid thermal annealing; Co-evaporation; Thinfilm solar cells
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Funding
- Department of Energy SunShot grant [DEEE0005319]
- National Science Foundation (NSF) through the National Nano Coordinated Infrastructure Network (NNCI) [ECCS1542202]
- Initiative for Renewable Energy & the Environment - University of Minnesota
- NSF
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Thin-film photovoltaic research based on ternary or quaternary absorber materials has mainly concentrated on copper (indium/gallium) diselenide, CuInxGa1-xSe2 (CIGS). This material has demonstrated exceptional energy conversion efficiencies. By altering the In/Ga ratio the band gap can be varied from 1.02 eV (for CuInSe2) to 1.68 eV (for CuGaSe2). However, research from leading groups showed that cells have maximum efficiency at or below 1.35 eV. This paper reports the challenges of using aluminium alloyed CIGS deposited with a single step co-evaporation method. Adding aluminium is found to reduce the bulk trap state density for wide gap devices. However, it created significant safety issues when compared to conventional CIGS co-evaporation deposition systems. The release of H2Se when moisture comes in contact with aluminium selenide was resolved by placing exhaust lines at various places of the deposition chamber. A single phase CIAGS device with a bandgap of 1.30 eV was prepared using a co-evaporation method. The fabricated solar cell devices with CIAGS absorber layers and resulted in a photoconversion efficiency of 10.3%. A progressive rapid thermal annealing at various temperature resulted in a 10% increase in the overall efficiency at 300 degrees C. The efficiencies were reduced when the RTA temperature increased above 300 degrees C.
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