Publication date: 28th August 2024
During the last almost three decades, the incorporation of light alkali-metal such as Na (generally between 0.05-0.5 at.%) in the Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) absorbers propelled the conversion efficiency of solar cells to 14-15%. Since 2016, attempts on the usage of heavy alkali metals (such as K, Rb and Cs), as well as the combination of Na and heavy alkalis, led to a further improvement of solar cell conversion efficiency by 5 to 8%, including the current record efficiency of 23.35%. However, efficiency gains are mostly empirical, and the fundamental understanding of performance improvements caused by alkali metals, especially when mixed, remains controversial. In the present work, we investigated the correlation between matrix elements (especially Cu) and alkali metal elements (Na, K, and Rb) at grain boundaries in CIGS thin films by employing atom probe tomography. The experimental data were used together with density functional theory (DFT) calculations to evaluate the effect of alkali metal atoms near GBs on the matrix elements and point defect states.
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