Development of CIGS2 solar cells with lower absorber thickness

    Authors

    P. S. Vasekar; N. G. Dhere;H. Moutinho

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Sol. Energy

    Keywords

    CIGS2; Absorber thickness; Thin-film solar cells; PERFORMANCE; Energy & Fuels

    Abstract

    The availability and cost of materials, especially of indium can be a limiting factor as chalcopyrite based thin-film solar cells advance in their commercialization. The required amounts of metals can be lowered by using thinner films. When the thickness of the film decreases, there is possibility of remaining only in the small grain region because the coalescence of grains does not have an opportunity to enhance the grain size to the maximum. Solar cell performance in smaller grain chalcopyrite absorber deteriorates due to larger fraction of grain boundaries. Efforts are being made to reduce the thickness while maintaining the comparable performance. This work presents a study of preparation, morphology and other material properties of CIGS2 absorber layers with decreasing thicknesses up to 1.2 mu m and its correlation with the device performance. Encouraging results were obtained demonstrating that reasonable solar cell efficiencies ( > 10%) can be achieved even for thinner CIGS2 thin-film solar cells. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Solar Energy

    Volume

    83

    Issue/Number

    9

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    1566

    Last Page

    1570

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000269289200016

    ISSN

    0038-092X

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