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Sprayed single phase CuIn0.6Ga0.4S thin films for solar cell applications; Solvent-dependent growth

FAWZY A. MAHMOUD1,2,* , A.Y. ELIWA3,* , NINET AHMED3, WAFAA MAGDY1,2

Affiliation

  1. Solid State Physics Dept., National Research Center, P.O. 12311, Dokki, Giza, Egypt
  2. Solar cell lab., Center of Excellence for Advanced Sciences, National Research Centre, P.O.12311, Dokki, Giza, Egypt
  3. Photovoltaic department, Electronics Research Institute, Dokki, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Single phase copper indium gallium sulfide (CIGS) thin films were deposited on a glass substrate by spray pyrolysis technique. Three spray solutions, were prepared with different solution solvents; Ethyl alcohol, Ethylene glycol and 2- Ethoxyethanol. The effect of solvent type on the structural, electrical, optical and surface properties has been investigated. XRD reveals the polycrystalline nature of CIGS films and predominate of (112) plane for all prepared films. Optical investigation showed that the value of absorption coefficient is in the order of 105 cm−1, indicating direct allowed energy gap about 1.5 eV. Thin film prepared using Ethyl alcohol solvent showed better crystallinity with a bigger crystallite size and lowest resistivity of 3.7×10−1 .cm. Three solar cells based on prepared samples with CIGS/n-Si structure was constructed and their I-V curves were measured. We found that the cell fabricated from Ethyl alcohol based spray solution shows the better I-V curve..

Keywords

Single phase CuIn0.6Ga0.4S, Thin film, Spray pyrolysis, Solar cells.

Submitted at: Feb. 3, 2016
Accepted at: April 5, 2016

Citation

FAWZY A. MAHMOUD, A.Y. ELIWA, NINET AHMED, WAFAA MAGDY, Sprayed single phase CuIn0.6Ga0.4S thin films for solar cell applications; Solvent-dependent growth, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 18, Iss. 3-4, pp. 268-274 (2016)