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Rear Surface Passivation for Ink-Based, Submicron CuIn(S, Se)2 Solar Cells

Suresh, S and Gidey, AT and Chowdhury, TH and Rondiya, SR and Tao, L and Liu, J and Vermang, B and Uhl, AR (2024) Rear Surface Passivation for Ink-Based, Submicron CuIn(S, Se)2 Solar Cells. In: Advanced Energy Materials .

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202303309

Abstract

A N, N-dimethylformamide and thiourea-based route is developed to fabricate submicron (0.55 and 0.75 µm) thick CuIn(S,Se)2 (CISSe) thin films for photovoltaic applications, addressing challenges of material usage, throughput, and manufacturing costs. However, reducing the absorber film thickness below 1 µm in a regular CISSe solar cell decreases the device efficiency due to losses at the highly-recombinative, and mediocre-reflective Mo/CISSe rear interface. For the first time, to mitigate the rear recombination losses, a novel rear contacting structure involving a surface passivation layer and point contact openings is developed for solution processed CISSe films and demonstrated in tangible devices. An atomic layer deposited Al2O3 film is employed to passivate the Mo/CISSe rear surface while precipitates formed via chemical bath deposition of CdS are used to generate nanosized point openings. Consequently, Al2O3 passivated CISSe solar cells show an increase in the open-circuit voltage (VOC) and short-circuit current density when compared to reference cells with equivalent absorber thicknesses. Notably, a VOC increase of 59 mV contributes to active area efficiencies of 14.2 for rear passivated devices with 0.75 µm thick absorber layers, the highest reported value for submicron-based solution processed, low bandgap CISSe solar cells. © 2024 The Authors. Advanced Energy Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: Advanced Energy Materials
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
Additional Information: The copyright for this article belongs to author.
Keywords: Alumina; Aluminum oxide; Atomic layer deposition; Cadmium sulfide; Conversion efficiency; II-VI semiconductors; Layered semiconductors; Open circuit voltage; Passivation; Selenium compounds; Semiconductor doping; Solar cells; Solar power generation; Zinc oxide, CIS; Materials manufacturing; N-N-dimethylformamide; Non-vacuum; Photovoltaic applications; Photovoltaics; Solution-processed; Submicron; Surface passivation; Thin-films, Thin films
Department/Centre: Division of Mechanical Sciences > Materials Engineering (formerly Metallurgy)
Date Deposited: 01 Mar 2024 09:45
Last Modified: 01 Mar 2024 09:45
URI: https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/83997

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