Sulfur-Treated ITO Back Contact for Enhanced Performance of Semitransparent Ultrathin Cu(In,Ga)Se2 Solar Cells

Ultrathin Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) solar cells can be fabricated using various back contact materials. Among those back contact materials, transparent conductive oxides have enabled a lot of applications in semitransparent ultrathin (STUT) CIGSe solar cells. Especially, tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) has been used as a back contact material to fabricate STUT CIGSe solar cells because of its high transparency and conductivity. However, the CIGSe absorber layer deposited on ITO substrates is known to form an undesirable GaOx layer at high processing temperatures owing to Ga diffusion. To improve the back contact properties at the CIGSe and ITO interface, sulfur treatment of the ITO back electrode was conducted. Its rear-side interface analysis indicated that the GaOx interfacial layer changed to a mixed interfacial layer upon undergoing sulfur treatment, wherein the GaSx and GaOx phases were formed at the CIGSe/ITO rear-side interface. A fundamental investigation of the material properties implied that GaOx and GaSx have different energy band alignments at the rear-side interface and that GaSx can be more helpful for hole extraction than the GaOx phase. After fabrication of the STUT CIGSe solar cell, the power conversion efficiency with an optimal sulfur-treatment time of 5 min increased to 9.0% while that of the control solar cell on bare ITO (i.e., without sulfur treatment) remained at 7.0%. The results suggested that the composition and characteristics of the interfacial layer had a substantial impact on the photovoltaic properties of the STUT CIGSe solar cells.

Automated summary

The study investigates the improvement of back electrode properties in STUT CIGSe solar cells by sulfur treatment of the ITO back electrode. The sulfur treatment results in the formation of GaSx and GaOx phases at the rear-side interface, with GaSx being more helpful for hole extraction. Optimized sulfur treatment time leads to an increase in power conversion efficiency of the solar cells.