Numerical Simulation of Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide Solar Cell with Ultra-Thin BaSi2 Back Surface Field Layer Using the Non-Toxic In2Se3 Buffer Layer

In this article, the thin-film solar cell (TFSC) based on a non-toxic In2Se3 buffer layer and low-cost ultra-thin BaSi2 Back Surface Field (BSF) has been proposed to enhance the performance of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cell. The proposed AI/SnO2/In2Se3/CIGS/BaSi2/Mo TFSC also aims to be cost-effective with reduced use of toxic material. Consequently, the CIGS layer thickness has been optimized (varied from 0.1-1 mu m) and the non-toxic In2Se3 buffer layer has been used compared to conventional toxic CdS-based AI/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo TFSC. The proposed TFSC achieves the conversion efficiency (CE) of 28.15% for the optimized CIGS thickness of 0.7 mu m and BaSi2 BSF layer thickness of 0.3 mu m. Further, the proposed TFSC has been investigated for variation in defect density, acceptor impurity of the CIGS absorber layer, and operating temperature of the device. Additionally, the results obtained for the proposed TFSC show improvement in the performance from the previously reported TFSC.

Automated summary

In this article, a thin-film solar cell based on non-toxic materials is proposed to enhance the performance of the solar cell while reducing the use of toxic materials. The optimized thin-film structure achieves improved conversion efficiency compared to previous reports.