Influence of an Sb doping layer in CIGS thin-film solar cells: a photoluminescence study

• Published in: Journal of physics. D, Applied physics Vol. 47; no. 4; pp. 45102 - 45109
• Main Authors: Puyvelde, L Van, Lauwaert, J, Pianezzi, F, Nishiwaki, S, Smet, P F, Poelman, D, Tiwari, A N, Vrielinck, H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing 29.01.2014
• Subjects: Cu(ln,Ga)Se; Defects; Photoluminescence
• ISSN: 0022-3727; 1361-6463
• DOI: 10.1088/0022-3727/47/4/045102

Sb doping of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells has been reported to exhibit a positive effect on the morphology of the absorber layer, offering a possibility to lower manufacturing cost by lowering the annealing temperatures during the CIGS deposition. In this work electron microscopy, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and photoluminescence experiments have been performed on cells deposited on soda-lime glass substrates, adding a thin Sb layer onto the Mo back contact prior to the CIGS absorber deposition. The defect structure of CIGS solar cells doped with Sb in this way has been investigated and is compared with that of undoped reference cells. The influence of substrate temperature during absorber growth has also been evaluated. For all samples the photoluminescence results can be explained by considering three donor-acceptor pair recombination processes involving the same defect pairs.