A novel cadmium free buffer layer for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 based solar cells

Improved Routes towards Solution Deposition of Indium Sulfide Thin Films for Photovoltaic Applications:

“…Films are most commonly deposited by the chemical bath method (CBD). Efficiencies of 15.7 % have been obtained for such devices, comparable to 16 % obtained for the standard CBD CdS buffer layer [7].…”

“…Such sensitivity grants the investigator the potential for tailoring the material properties of films by judicious selection of CBD conditions. Various groups have reported CBD-Inx(OH,S)y [7][8][9] but to date, no convincing studies have been presented for the CBD of pristine and crystalline In2S3. The most satisfactory films have been deposited from baths containing acetic acid.…”

Optical Properties of Wide Band Gap Indium Sulphide Thin Films Obtained by Physical Vapor Deposition

“…1, 179-186 (2001) Several CBD deposited Cd-free materials have already been used as buffer layers. Conversion efficiencies higher than 10% have been achieved with Zn(S, O, OH), ZnSe [5] or Sn(S, O) 2 [2] as buffer layers and higher than 15% with In x (OH, S) y [6]. Nevertheless, the large scale development of such buffer layers containing solar cells is limited by the break in the production chain because of their CBD deposition process.…”

New ternary compounds stoichiometry-linked thermal behavior optimisation using Boubaker polynomials

“…Parallel to these investigations, many Cd-free alternatives have been proposed, i.e. the In x (OH,S) y compounds presented by Hariskos et al [3] and Braunger et al [4] for solar cells based on Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 , or the ZnO, Zn(S,OH)-Zn(Se,OH) buffer layers grown by the chemical-bath deposition (CBD) and proposed by Ennaoui et al [5,6]. More recent studies give a strong supply to this trend, like the works of Gowrishankar et al [7] in which the high efficiency of semiconducting polymers (Cd-free copper-indium-gallium-diselenide/polymers) hybrid solar cells is proven, or the studies of Sankapala et al [8] which outlined the efficiency of the related experimental methods (chemical-bath deposition, metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and successive ionic layer adsorption (SILA)).The latter studies discussed and classified the optimum preparative parameters and respective Cd-free layers structural, surface morphological, compositional, optical, and electrical properties.…”

“…In the last two decades, the Zn-doped [1,2] compounds (band energy gap: Eg ∈ [2.2; 2.9] eV) have been proposed as Cd-free [3,12] buffer layers for I-III-VI 2 and similar solar cells. For example, Kurosaki et al [1] measured the electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity Zn-doped Nd 2 (Cu 0.98 M 0.02 )O 4 | (M=Zn) , and recorded the effect of the introduced zinc amount on the thermal behavior.…”