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Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance

Structural defects such as voids and compositional inhomogeneities may affect the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) (CIGS) solar cells. We analyzed the morphology and elemental distributions in co-evaporated CIGS thin films at the different stages of the CIGS growth by energy-dispersive x-ray spectrosco...

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Autores principales: Avancini, Enrico, Keller, Debora, Carron, Romain, Arroyo-Rojas Dasilva, Yadira, Erni, Rolf, Priebe, Agnieszka, Di Napoli, Simone, Carrisi, Martina, Sozzi, Giovanna, Menozzi, Roberto, Fu, Fan, Buecheler, Stephan, Tiwari, Ayodhya N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30479675
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2018.1536679
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author Avancini, Enrico
Keller, Debora
Carron, Romain
Arroyo-Rojas Dasilva, Yadira
Erni, Rolf
Priebe, Agnieszka
Di Napoli, Simone
Carrisi, Martina
Sozzi, Giovanna
Menozzi, Roberto
Fu, Fan
Buecheler, Stephan
Tiwari, Ayodhya N.
author_facet Avancini, Enrico
Keller, Debora
Carron, Romain
Arroyo-Rojas Dasilva, Yadira
Erni, Rolf
Priebe, Agnieszka
Di Napoli, Simone
Carrisi, Martina
Sozzi, Giovanna
Menozzi, Roberto
Fu, Fan
Buecheler, Stephan
Tiwari, Ayodhya N.
author_sort Avancini, Enrico
collection PubMed
description Structural defects such as voids and compositional inhomogeneities may affect the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) (CIGS) solar cells. We analyzed the morphology and elemental distributions in co-evaporated CIGS thin films at the different stages of the CIGS growth by energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope. Accumulation of Cu-Se phases was found at crevices and at grain boundaries after the Cu-rich intermediate stage of the CIGS deposition sequence. It was found, that voids are caused by Cu out-diffusion from crevices and GBs during the final deposition stage. The Cu inhomogeneities lead to non-uniform diffusivities of In and Ga, resulting in lateral inhomogeneities of the In and Ga distribution. Two and three-dimensional simulations were used to investigate the impact of the inhomogeneities and voids on the solar cell performance. A significant impact of voids was found, indicating that the unpassivated voids reduce the open-circuit voltage and fill factor due to the introduction of free surfaces with high recombination velocities close to the CIGS/CdS junction. We thus suggest that voids, and possibly inhomogeneities, limit the efficiency of solar cells based on three-stage co-evaporated CIGS thin films. Passivation of the voids’ internal surface may reduce their detrimental effects.
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spelling pubmed-62495402018-11-26 Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance Avancini, Enrico Keller, Debora Carron, Romain Arroyo-Rojas Dasilva, Yadira Erni, Rolf Priebe, Agnieszka Di Napoli, Simone Carrisi, Martina Sozzi, Giovanna Menozzi, Roberto Fu, Fan Buecheler, Stephan Tiwari, Ayodhya N. Sci Technol Adv Mater Energy Materials Structural defects such as voids and compositional inhomogeneities may affect the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) (CIGS) solar cells. We analyzed the morphology and elemental distributions in co-evaporated CIGS thin films at the different stages of the CIGS growth by energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope. Accumulation of Cu-Se phases was found at crevices and at grain boundaries after the Cu-rich intermediate stage of the CIGS deposition sequence. It was found, that voids are caused by Cu out-diffusion from crevices and GBs during the final deposition stage. The Cu inhomogeneities lead to non-uniform diffusivities of In and Ga, resulting in lateral inhomogeneities of the In and Ga distribution. Two and three-dimensional simulations were used to investigate the impact of the inhomogeneities and voids on the solar cell performance. A significant impact of voids was found, indicating that the unpassivated voids reduce the open-circuit voltage and fill factor due to the introduction of free surfaces with high recombination velocities close to the CIGS/CdS junction. We thus suggest that voids, and possibly inhomogeneities, limit the efficiency of solar cells based on three-stage co-evaporated CIGS thin films. Passivation of the voids’ internal surface may reduce their detrimental effects. Taylor & Francis 2018-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6249540/ /pubmed/30479675 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2018.1536679 Text en © 2018 The Author(s). Published by National Institute for Materials Science in partnership with Taylor & Francis Group. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Energy Materials
Avancini, Enrico
Keller, Debora
Carron, Romain
Arroyo-Rojas Dasilva, Yadira
Erni, Rolf
Priebe, Agnieszka
Di Napoli, Simone
Carrisi, Martina
Sozzi, Giovanna
Menozzi, Roberto
Fu, Fan
Buecheler, Stephan
Tiwari, Ayodhya N.
Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title_full Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title_fullStr Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title_full_unstemmed Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title_short Voids and compositional inhomogeneities in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
title_sort voids and compositional inhomogeneities in cu(in,ga)se(2) thin films: evolution during growth and impact on solar cell performance
topic Energy Materials
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6249540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30479675
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2018.1536679
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