Potential gain in photocurrent generation for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells by using In2O3 as a transparent conductive oxide layer

Abstract

AbstractThis study highlights the potential of atomic layer deposited In2O3 as a highly transparent and conductive oxide (TCO) layer in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) solar cells. It is shown that the efficiency of solar cells which use Zn‐Sn‐O (ZTO) as an alternative buffer layer can be increased by employing In2O3 as a TCO because of a reduction of the parasitic absorption in the window layer structure, resulting in 1.7 mA/cm2 gain in short circuit current density (Jsc). In contrast, a degradation of device properties is observed if the In2O3 TCO is combined with the conventional CdS buffer layer. The estimated improvement for large‐scale modules is discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.