Electrodeposited zinc grid as low-cost solar cell front contact

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative low-cost electrodeposition process to grow metallic zinc grids as a front contact for Cu (In,Ga)(Se,S) 2 (CIGS) and silicon heterojunction solar cells as an alternative to complex and expensive monolithic integration and silver screen printing techniques respectively. Morphological and electrical properties of the grid have been investigated and compared with a reference evaporated one. High quality and conformal zinc grids have been deposited showing very high growth rates up to 3.3 μm min À1 . Zinc grid is successfully deposited as front electrode for CIGS solar cells that are fabricated by a variety of deposition processes. Efficiency (16.3%) is achieved without antireflection coating on a 0.5 cm 2 co-evaporated absorber and 14.8% on an electrodeposited one. Using electrodeposition for the growth of the doped ZnO film as well, a 14.1% efficiency is demonstrated on an all-wet solar cell only composed of layers deposited by atmospheric methods-from absorber to metallic grid. The process is then applied to a 4.2 cm 2 cell as a first step toward largescale application. Finally, a zinc grid is deposited on a 0.5 cm 2 silicon heterojunction showing a promising 17% efficiency.

Flexible transparent electrodes based on metallic micro–nano architectures for perovskite solar cells

“…MMNAs formed by silver (Ag), 39,[119][120][121][122][123] copper (Cu), [124][125][126] gold (Au), 37,127,128 platinum (Pt), 129 nickel (Ni), 65,130 or zinc (Zn) 89 keep the high electrical conductivity from bulk metal and tunable optical transmittance in a wide range. In this way, varieties of MMNAs are regarded as the most potential conductive materials for flexible TEs.…”

“…Besides these four key factors, appropriate work function, cost-effective material, highthroughput fabrication processing, and chemical stability should also be considered for developing high-performance flexible TEs. Among the abovementioned novel conductive materials, MMNAs have been widely equipped in silicon solar cells, 83,84 III-V photovoltaics, 85,86 Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S) 2 cells, [87][88][89] and organic solar cells, 44,[90][91][92] due to the high conductivity and tunable optical transmittance of MMNAs. However, drawbacks including high roughness, immigration of metallic ions, and degradation at the interface are faced when flexible TEs based on MMNAs are integrated with PSCs.…”

Controllable Multinary Alloy Electrodeposition for Thin-Film Solar Cell Fabrication: A Case Study of Kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4

“…In particular, ED has met with success in preparing a wide range of photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic solar absorber films, including Sb 2 Se 3 ( Ngo et al., 2014 ), CdTe ( Lincot, 2005 ), Cu 2 O ( Dias et al., 2015 ), CuSbS 2 ( Rastogi and Janardhana, 2014 , Septina et al., 2014 ), Cu(In, Ga)Se 2 (CIGS) ( Duchatelet et al., 2013 , Lincot et al., 2004 ), Cu 2 ZnSnS(e) 4 [CZTS(e)] ( Colombara et al., 2015 , Peter, 2015 ), and CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 ( Chen et al., 2015 , Huang et al., 2015 ). Aside from the absorbers, functional ZnO window layers ( Tsin et al., 2015 , Tsin et al., 2016a ), Zn-based finger grids ( Tsin et al., 2016b ), and CuSCN ( Ye et al., 2015 ) charge transport layers in the thin-film solar cells can be as well prepared by ED. Besides, ED has already demonstrated great success in the roll-to-roll CIGS solar panel manufacture, which is based on the precursor type of an electrodeposited Cu-In-Ga alloy covered by an electrodeposited In-Se or Ga-Se single layer ( Aksu et al., 2012 , Başol et al., 2009 ).…”