The degradation mechanism of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin film solar cells under high-temperatures conditions has been investigated. CIGS thin film solar cells were heated at temperatures ranging from 100 to 450 °C in a vacuum for 30 min. It was found that the CIGS devices with chemical bath deposited (CBD)–CdS and CBD–ZnS(O,OH) buffer layers were stable below 320 and 350 °C, respectively. These results suggest that CIGS devices possess high heat-resistance enough for practical usage. Secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) and electron beam induced current (EBIC) analyses revealed that the main cause for the degradation of CIGS devices at high temperatures is attributable to a shift of the space charge region (SCR) toward the Mo back contact due to excess diffusion of Cd into CIGS absorber layer.

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The efficiency of 17.8% on a 30 × 30cm 2 -sized Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S) 2 (CIS)-based thin-film submodule was achieved. The device structure is same as our previous works; monolithically integrated CIS-based cells on a Modeposited glass substrate with a Zn(O, S, OH) x buffer and a ZnO window. Current Progress was mainly brought by review of the band profile of the absorber layer. More specifically, fine tuning of the grading of Ga/(Ga+In) and S/(Se+S) ratio turned out to improve the value of V oc × J sc by a factor of as much as three percent.