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Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments

The properties and performance of polycrystalline materials depend critically on the properties of their grain boundaries.*

In the article “Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments “ Nicoleta Nicoara, Roby Manaligod, Philip Jackson, Dimitrios Hariskos, Wolfram Witte, Giovanna Sozzi, Roberto Menozzi and Sascha Sadewasser investigate the direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(in,GA)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride treatment. They present a KPFM study on the electronic GB properties in CIGSe deposited by co-evaporation and compare the effect of KF-, RbF-, and CsF-PDT.*

Their results suggest that heavier alkali elements might lead to better passivation by reducing the density of charged defects and increasing the formation of secondary phases at grain boundaries.*

The KPFM measurements for the study were carried out with platinum iridium coated NANOSENSORS™ PointProbe® Plus PPP-NCLPt AFM probes.*

Figure 1 from “Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments” by S. Sadewasser et al.: Representative KPFM results on annealed and rinsed AlkF-PDT CIGSe absorbers. From left to right the data correspond to KF-, RbF-, and CsF-PDT. a–c Topography images, d–f simultaneously acquired work function maps measured under dark conditions, and g histograms extracted from the work function maps; dashed lines indicate Gaussian fits and the bars with the numbers the spread at 1/e of the peak maximum
Figure 1 from “Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments” by S. Sadewasser et al.:
Representative KPFM results on annealed and rinsed AlkF-PDT CIGSe absorbers. From left to right the data correspond to KF-, RbF-, and CsF-PDT. a–c Topography images, d–f simultaneously acquired work function maps measured under dark conditions, and g histograms extracted from the work function maps; dashed lines indicate Gaussian fits and the bars with the numbers the spread at 1/e of the peak maximum

*Nicoleta Nicoara, Roby Manaligod, Philip Jackson, Dimitrios Hariskos, Wolfram Witte, Giovanna Sozzi, Roberto Menozzi, Sascha Sadewasser
Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments
Nature Communications, volume 10, Article number: 3980 (2019)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11996-y

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Open Access The article « Direct evidence for grain boundary passivation in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells through alkali-fluoride post-deposition treatments” by Nicoleta Nicoara, Roby Manaligod, Philip Jackson, Dimitrios Hariskos, Wolfram Witte, Giovanna Sozzi, Roberto Menozzi and Sascha Sadewasser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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