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Abstract
The quest for single-stage deposition of CuInGaSe2 (CIGS) is an open race to replace very effective but capital intensive thin film solar cell manufacturing processes like multiple-stage coevaporation or sputtering combined with high pressure selenisation treatments. In this paper the most recent achievements of Low Temperature Pulsed Electron Deposition (LTPED), a novel single stage deposition process by which CIGS can be deposited at 250 °C, are presented and discussed. We show that selenium loss during the film deposition is not a problem with LTPED as good crystalline films are formed very close to the melting temperature of selenium. The mechanism of formation of good ohmic contacts between CIGS and Mo in the absence of any MoSe2 transition layers is also illustrated, followed by a brief summary of the measured characteristics of test solar cells grown by LTPED. The 17% efficiency target achieved by lab-scale CIGS devices without bandgap modulation, antireflection coating or K-doping is considered to be a crucial milestone along the path to the industrial scale-up of LTPED. The paper ends with a brief review of the open scientific and technological issues related to the scale-up and the possible future applications of the new technology.
Highlights
Thin film photovoltaic technologies have made dramatic progress over the last seven years, both in terms of solar cell efficiency and production cost
This paper briefly summarises the main characteristics of Low Temperature Pulsed Electron Deposition (LTPED) and provides evidence of the material and device quality obtained by optimising the CIGS growth conditions
The basic characteristics of the LTPED process were described in a previous paper [11] where the fabrication of CIGS solar cells exceeding 15% efficiency was reported for the first time
Summary
Thin film photovoltaic technologies have made dramatic progress over the last seven years, both in terms of solar cell efficiency and production cost. Energies 2016, 9, 207 of the primary energy consumption in both the EU and the USA and use about 72% and 58% of the electricity distributed by the grid in the USA and the EU, respectively. For these reasons the photovoltaic industry has already started to differentiate their portfolio of products and a variety of new photovoltaic modules designed for building integrated (BIPV)
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