Fabrication and Characterization of Thin Film Solar Cell Made from CuIn0.75Ga0.25S2Wurtzite Nanoparticles

Fengyan Zhang,Joshua J Pak,Cyril Bajracharya,Rene G Rodriguez,Chivin Sun

doi:10.1155/2013/320375

Fengyan Zhang, Joshua J Pak + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/320375

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Abstract

CuIn0.75Ga0.25S2(CIGS) thin film solar cells have been successfully fabricated using CIGS Wurtzite phase nanoparticles for the first time. The structure of the cell is Glass/Mo/CIGS/CdS/ZnO/ZnO:Al/Ag. The light absorption layer is made from CIGS Wurtzite phase nanoparticles that are formed from single-source precursors through a microwave irradiation. The Wurtzite phase nanoparticles were converted to Chalcopyrite phase film through a single-step annealing process in the presence of argon and sulfur at 450°C. The solar cell made from Wurtzite phase nanoparticles showed 1.6% efficiency and 0.42 fill factor.

Highlights

Current CIGS thin film solar cells using evaporation or sputtering processes are expensive, and the composition uniformity is difficult to control on a large scale
We describe the procedures of fabricating a CIGS thin film solar cell from large metastable Wurtzite phase nanoparticles
The widths of the peaks in the post-annealed X-ray diffraction (XRD) trace clearly show that the films made

Summary

Introduction

Current CIGS thin film solar cells using evaporation or sputtering processes are expensive, and the composition uniformity is difficult to control on a large scale. We chose to use large-sized CIGS particles in a different metastable phase, Wurtzite particles, and convert them into a Chalcopyrite phase CIGS thin film at higher temperature. Wurtzite phase is a cation disordered polymorph of Chalcopyrite with copper and indium cations randomly sharing common lattice sites It belongs to space group P63mc with a = 0.390652 nm and c = 6.42896 nm. The growth process of the Wurtzite phase nanoparticles is controllable, and it has been demonstrated that certain reaction conditions can be used to produce large-sized hexagonal plate particles with a lower surface area to volume ratio than smaller Chalcopyrite particles. We describe the procedures of fabricating a CIGS thin film solar cell from large metastable Wurtzite phase nanoparticles

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusion