Characterization of CIGS thin film solar cells

Photovoltaic solar energy is presently a consolidated market. The annual growth rate of global photovoltaic installations was 40% in 2010-2016, a milestone hardly achieved by any other segment of the technology industry. Silicon based technology accounted for 94% of the total production in 2016, while the market share of thin film technology was 6%. One of the materials used in the thin film photovoltaic market is copper indium gallium di-selenide (CIGS). This work presents the preliminary results of a collaborative program between Florida Solar Energy Center and Instituto Militar de Engenharia aiming the fabrication and characterization of CIGS thin film solar cells. The solar devices were fabricated at Florida Solar Energy Center with the configuration glass/Mo/CIGS/CdS/ZnO/ZnO: Al/metal and were characterized at Instituto Militar de Engenharia from the current x voltage and quantum efficiencies curves. The highest efficiency was 3.8%. The results showed that the efficiency was limited by the low values of fill factor and open circuit voltage. Parallel and series resistances limited the fill factor. The lack of the alkali post treatment and the low quantity of gallium in the CIGS film limited the open circuit voltage. The results also suggest that the thickness of the cadmium sulfide layer is nonuniform, probably due to the swirling occasioned by excessively stirring of the precursor solution during the chemical bath deposition.