Thin film CIGS solar cells with a novel low cost process

• Unité de recherche: OFEN
• Numéro de projet: 100964

Rapport final (Anglais)

Novel manufacturing routes for efficient and low-cost Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (called CIGS) thin film solar cells are explored and patented. CIGS has proven its suitability for highly efficient and extremely stable solar cells. The low-cost methods allow impurity free material synthesis, fast large-area deposition, high material utilization and a very short energy payback time with drastically lower manufacturing costs. Two non-vacuum, solution-based approaches are in-vestigated to deposit thin layers of CIGS. The first approach considers incorporation of cop-per into indium gallium selenide precursor layers by ion-exchange from aqueous or organic solutions. Organic solutions provide faster copper incorporation and do not corrode the metal back contact. Solar cells processed from selenized precursor films exhibit efficiencies of up to 4.1%. The second approach with paste coating of inorganic salt solution results in a solar cell efficiency of 4% (record 6.7%), where further improvements are hindered by the pres-ence of the residual carbon layer. Using alternative organic binders, pre-deposited selenium layers, non-binder recipes helps to avoid the carbon layer although the obtained layers are inhomogeneous and contain impurity phases. A patent for the ion-exchange approach is pending, and the obtained research results on the paste coating approach will be scrutinized during new European FP7 project “NOVA-CIGS”.

Auftragnehmer/Contractant/Contraente/Contractor:


Autorschaft/Auteurs/Autori/Authors:
Tiwari,Ayodhya Nath
Romanyuk,Yaroslav

Documents annexés

• Flexible cigs solar cells and mini-modules (Flexcim) - Final report [PDF] 306 kB
• Flexible CIGS solar cells on large area polymer foils with in-line deposition methods and application of alternative back contacts - Final Report [PDF] 820 kB
• Thin Film CIGS Solar Cells with a Novel Low Cost Process - Final report [PDF] 1'236 kB