China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Chalcogenide-Based 2D Nanomaterials for Solar Cells
Published in Ram K. Gupta, Energy Applications of 2D Nanomaterials, 2022
It is worth remembering that it is not sufficient to employ continuously a p-type CIGS coating of 1–2 μm depth. There is a necessity of a p-n junction and good electrical contacts. After the research and development on numerous chalcogenide materials, the achievable approximate values of efficiency for CIGS cells are 20% and 3%, respectively, on the laboratory and industrial scales. Thus, the 2D chalcogenide substances that are used frequently in solar cells applications are restricted to solitarily a limited number of candidates. However, the solar cells of CIGS demonstrate excellent performance, better efficiency (~20%), and low production cost. Due to these features, they are currently viewed as a foremost rival to conventionally available silicon cells.
Extension of the New Model to CIGS Thin-Film Solar Cells
Published in I. M. Dharmadasa, Advances in Thin-Film Solar Cells, 2018
The CIGS solar cell device, currently under intense research has a glass/Mo/CIGS/n-CdS/i-ZnO/n-ZnO:Al/metal-grid structure. The device is gradually built up starting from the back metal contact of Mo, sputtered on to the glass substrate. The growth process of CIGS varies, and the most common techniques used are coevaporation of elements or sputtering to deposit individual Cu, In, and Ga layers and then selenise at temperatures above 550°C using H2Se gas [19]. Some groups introduce S also on to the surface by the sulphidation process at 600°C using H2S gas [19]. After the completion of the growth of the CIGS layer, a thin layer of n-CdS (~80 nm) is incorporated usually using the chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique. Intrinsic ZnO (~70 nm) and an ntype Al-doped ZnO (~100 nm) layers are then deposited using the sputtering technique. A grid type Al/Ni front metal contact is finally deposited by either the vacuum evaporation or sputtering technique. A schematic diagram of the complete device structure for this device is shown in Fig. 5.1.
Optical to electrical energy conversion: Solar cells
Published in John P. Dakin, Robert G. W. Brown, Handbook of Optoelectronics, 2017
Tom Markvart, Fernando Araujo de Castro
The other main compound semiconductor that is being used in commercial production of solar cells is CIGS. It forms a chalcopyrite crystal structure and the bandgap can be optimized by controlling the amount of gallium in the structure, CuInxGa(1−x)Se2. Optimized structures have achieved research cell efficiencies of 21.7%. The band structure of a typical CIGS solar cell, based on a CdS/Cu(InGa)Se2 heterostructure, is shown in Figure 16.10c. There is also much interest in other types of compound semiconductors that do not use scarce elements (i.e., In), such as compounds that form kesterite structure (e.g., Cu2ZnSnS4), that have shown laboratory cell efficiencies of 12%.
Numerical analysis of non-uniform Cu(In, Ga)Se2 growth in a selenization process on large-area substrates for mass production
Published in Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2022
Taejong Yu, Daegeun Yoon, Donghyun You
CIGS solar cells have been receiving attention as a promising thin-film solar cell. The solar cells include a Cu(In, Ga)Se (CIGS) layer as a light absorber which has the highest light-absorption coefficient among compound solar cells (Chen et al., 2017). The high absorption coefficient of the layer guarantees efficient absorption of incident photons even with a thickness of a few micrometers due to the direct band-gap of a CIGS compound. The highest conversion efficiency of CIGS solar cells has been reported to reach 23% at a cell size of (Nakamura et al., 2019) and 19% at a small-module size (Stölzel et al., 2019). The reported conversion efficiency is close to that of the most efficient but expensive silicon-based solar cells.
A comprehensive review of different types of solar photovoltaic cells and their applications
Published in International Journal of Ambient Energy, 2021
Neelam Rathore, Narayan Lal Panwar, Fatiha Yettou, Amor Gama
It is a semiconductor which comprises four elements, i.e. copper, indium, galium and selenium (Bagher, Vahid, and Mohsen 2015). CIGS has achieved efficiency of about ∼10−12%. Technology based on the CIGS solar cell forms one of the apparent thin-film technologies due to its high efficiency. The processing of CIGS is done by the following techniques: sputtering, evaporation, electrochemical coating technique, printing and electron beam deposition (Razykov et al. 2011; Srinivas et al. 2015). The non-degrading nature and prolonged life are important benefits of CIGS solar cells technology (Badawy 2015; Imamzai et al. 2012). The effect of increase of temperature on the efficiency of CIGS solar cells is shown in Table 3. Figure 7 depicts the CIGS solar cell.
EUROCORR 2020: ‘Closing the gap between industry and academia in corrosion science and prediction’
Published in Corrosion Engineering, Science and Technology, 2021
D. J. Mills, D. Nuttall, L. Atkin
Klaas Bakker from TNO – Solliance, Netherlands, presented a paper entitled ‘Propagation mechanism of worm like defects in CIGS solar cells’. Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar cells is one of three mainstream thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technologies, the other two being cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon. In operation, solar cells can become partially shaded, reversing the polarity and inducing defects, known as hotspots, in the CIGS layer. These hotspots migrate through the cells in patterns rather like filiform corrosion, creating worm-like defects. The study recreated these defects in lab conditions and found that changing conductivity of the Al/ZnO layer on top of the cell influenced propagation of the defects, thus enabling a better understanding of how to decrease their occurrence by design.