Local growth and insulation of CIGSe islands for micro concentrator solar cells

Thin film solar cells made of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) suffer from high costs, since the rare elements indium and gallium are used for a multitude of technical applications. The concept of micro-concentrator CIGSe solar cells allows substantial material saving. Therefore a reliable bottom up process for the preparation of the absorber islands is required. In addition, this also results in an increase of solar cell efficiency. We show that the indium islands can be grown at predefined locations by novel methods of surface treatment before indium deposition. By this, regular island patterns with a well-defined morphology have been obtained. The controlled deposition of copper, followed by selenization in a PVD system, and selective etching of copper selenides yields polycrystalline CIGSe micro islands with promising material properties. For the samples, we proof ways to place a non-conducting layer in between CIGSe islands to insulate the front and back contact. This layer is obtained by spin-coating and curing a novolak based resist. At first, the photovoltaic active absorber islands is completely covered by the resin. The top of the islands can be stripped by plasma etching for front contacting. A characterization of the obtained devices provided evidence for their functionality.