Development of a hybrid sputtering/evaporation process for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin film solar cells

In this paper we report a new method for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 deposition for solar cell application. Differently from the common co-evaporation process, an alterative approach for thin film Cu(In,Ga)Se2 has been tested: the sputtering deposition of metal elements combined with the selenium evaporation. We have studied the relationships between the growth parameters of our hybrid sputtering/evaporation method and the chemical-physical properties of the CIGS films. The cells are completed with a CdS buffer layer deposited by chemical bath deposition and ZnO + ITO deposited by RF sputtering. Test solar cells of 0.5 cm2 have shown an efficiency of 10% and 2.5% on glass and stainless steel substrate respectively. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)