Abstract
High quality Cu2CdGeSe4 micro-crystalline powder has been synthesized by molten salt method at 700 °C in closed quartz ampoules using elemental Ge, binary CdSe and CuSe as precursor materials and KI as flux material. The effect of initial Cu and Cd content on the bulk composition of grown crystals was investigated. According to energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy results, the two types of Cu2CdGeSe4 powders, with nearly stoichiometric and with Cd-rich composition were synthesized. X-ray diffraction and Raman analyses confirmed that all studied Cu2CdGeSe4 crystals had orthorhombic crystal structure. It was essential to chemically and thermally modify the surface of crystals before implementing the powder crystals as absorber materials in monograin layer solar cells. Results showed that both Br2−MeOH and HCl combined with KCN etching were effective to remove secondary phases on the crystal surface. Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses revealed that after annealing at 400 °C the crystal surface is covered by GexSe1-x phase, which was effectively removed by KCN etching. Using this approach, we achieved Cu2CdGeSe4 monograin layer device conversion efficiency of 5.7%.
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