PMID- 31035494
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
LR  - 20201001
IS  - 1996-1944 (Print)
IS  - 1996-1944 (Electronic)
IS  - 1996-1944 (Linking)
VI  - 12
IP  - 9
DP  - 2019 Apr 26
TI  - Optimization of Intrinsic ZnO Thickness in Cu(In,Ga)Se(2)-Based Thin Film Solar 
      Cells.
LID - 10.3390/ma12091365 [doi]
LID - 1365
AB  - The typical structure of high efficiency Cu(InGa)Se(2) (CIGS)-based thin film 
      solar cells is substrate/Mo/CIGS/CdS/i-ZnO/ZnO:Al(AZO) where the sun light comes 
      through the transparent conducting oxide (i.e., i-ZnO/AZO) side. In this study, 
      the thickness of an intrinsic zinc oxide (i-ZnO) layer was optimized by 
      considering the surface roughness of CIGS light absorbers. The i-ZnO layers with 
      different thicknesses from 30 to 170 nm were deposited via sputtering. The 
      optical properties, microstructures, and morphologies of the i-ZnO thin films 
      with different thicknesses were characterized, and their effects on the CIGS 
      solar cell device properties were explored. Two types of CIGS absorbers prepared 
      by three-stage co-evaporation and two-step sulfurization after the selenization 
      (SAS) processes showed a difference in the preferred crystal orientation, 
      morphology, and surface roughness. During the subsequent post-processing for the 
      fabrication of the glass/Mo/CIGS/CdS/i-ZnO/AZO device, the change in the i-ZnO 
      thickness influenced the performance of the CIGS devices. For the three-stage 
      co-evaporated CIGS cell, the increase in the thickness of the i-ZnO layer from 30 
      to 90 nm improved the shunt resistance (R(SH)), open circuit voltage, and fill 
      factor (FF), as well as the conversion efficiency (10.1% to 11.8%). A further 
      increas of the i-ZnO thickness to 170 nm, deteriorated the device performance 
      parameters, which suggests that 90 nm is close to the optimum thickness of i-ZnO. 
      Conversely, the device with a two-step SAS processed CIGS absorber showed smaller 
      values of the overall R(SH) (130-371 Omega cm(2)) than that of the device with a 
      three-stage co-evaporated CIGS absorber (530-1127 Omega cm(2)) ranging from 30 nm to 
      170 nm of i-ZnO thickness. Therefore, the value of the shunt resistance was 
      monotonically increased with the i-ZnO thickness ranging from 30 to 170 nm, which 
      improved the FF and conversion efficiency (6.96% to 8.87%).
FAU - Alhammadi, Salh
AU  - Alhammadi S
AD  - School of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-ro, Gyeongsan 
      38541, Korea. salehalhammadi.1987@gmail.com.
FAU - Park, Hyeonwook
AU  - Park H
AD  - School of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-ro, Gyeongsan 
      38541, Korea. greatekal@naver.com.
FAU - Kim, Woo Kyoung
AU  - Kim WK
AD  - School of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-ro, Gyeongsan 
      38541, Korea. wkim@ynu.ac.kr.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20190426
PL  - Switzerland
TA  - Materials (Basel)
JT  - Materials (Basel, Switzerland)
JID - 101555929
PMC - PMC6539136
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - CIGS
OT  - Cu(In,Ga)Se2
OT  - i-ZnO
OT  - intrinsic ZnO
OT  - shunt resistance
OT  - solar cell material
COIS- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
EDAT- 2019/05/01 06:00
MHDA- 2019/05/01 06:01
PMCR- 2019/04/26
CRDT- 2019/05/01 06:00
PHST- 2019/04/01 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2019/04/21 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2019/04/22 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2019/05/01 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2019/05/01 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2019/05/01 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2019/04/26 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - ma12091365 [pii]
AID - materials-12-01365 [pii]
AID - 10.3390/ma12091365 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Materials (Basel). 2019 Apr 26;12(9):1365. doi: 10.3390/ma12091365.