Soft X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy Investigation of the Surface Chemistry and Treatments of Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide (CIGS)

Steven Christensen, Lorelle Mansfield, Katherine Hurst, Kannan Ramanathan, Craig Schwartz, Dennis Nordlund, Dimosthenis Sokaras, Tsu-Chien Weng, David Prendergast, Miguel Contreras, Arrelaine Dameron

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus Citations

Abstract

The surface and near surface structure of copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) absorber layers is integral to the producing a high-quality photovoltaic junction. By using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and monitoring multiple elemental absorption edges with both theory and experiment, we are able to identify several features of the surface of CIGS as a function of composition and surface treatments. The XAS data shows trends in the near surface region of oxygen, copper, indium and gallium species as the copper content is varied in the films. The oxygen surface species are also monitored through a series of experiments that systematically investigates the effects of water and various solutions of: ammonium hydroxide, cadmium sulfate, and thiourea. These being components of cadmium sulfide chemical bath deposition (CBD). Characteristics of the CBD are correlated with a restorative effect that produces as normalized, uniform surface chemistry as measured by XAS. This surface chemistry is found in CIGS solar cells with excellent power conversion efficiency (<19%). The results provide new insight for CIGS processing strategies that seek to replace CBD and/or cadmium sulfide.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)390-397
Number of pages8
JournalSolar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Volume160
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-67423

Keywords

  • Chemical bath deposition
  • CIGS
  • Copper-indium-gallium-selenide
  • Surface analysis
  • XAS

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