Large Scale Single-Crystal Cu(In,Ga)Se2 Nanotip Arrays for High Efficiency Solar Cell

Abstract

Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) is the best material choice for solar cell owing to the highest light absorption and tunable bandgap while the further improvement of efficiency has to rely on nanostructures, which has attracted much attention in recent years , . In this paper, we demonstrated direct formation of large area Cu(In,Ga)Se2 nanotip arrays (CIGS NTRs) by using one step Ar+ milling process without template. By controlling milling time and incident angles, the length of CIGS NTRs with adjustable tilting orientations can be precisely controlled. Formation criteria of these CIGS NTRs have been discussed in terms of surface curvature, multiple components, and crystal quality, resulting in a highly anisotropic milling effect. The CIGS NTRs have very low reflectance < 0.1 % at incident wavelengths between 300 nm to 1200 nm. Open circuit voltage and short circuit current of CIGS NTRs solar cell were measured to be ~390 mV and ~22.56 mA/cm2, yielding the filling factor and the efficiency of 59 % and 5.2 %, respectively. In contrast to CIGS thin film solar cell with efficiency of 3.2 %, the nanostructured CIGS NTRs can have efficiency enhancement of ~160 % due to the higher light absorption ability because of the nanostructure.