Towards all-non-vacuum-processed photovoltaic systems: a water-based screen-printed Cu(In,Ga)Se2 Photoabsorber with a 6.6% efficiency

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves, Bruna F.
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Sousa, Viviana, Virtuoso, José, Modin, Evgeny, Lebedev, Oleg I., Botelho, Gabriela, Sadewasser, Sascha, Salonen, Laura M., Lanceros-Méndez, S., Kolen’ko, Yury V.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/86967
• topic: All-non-vacuum processing; Cu(In,Ga)Se2; Photovoltaics; Screen printing; Sustainable inks

During the last few decades, major advances have been made in photovoltaic systems based on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 chalcopyrite. However, the most efficient photovoltaic cells are processed under high-energy-demanding vacuum conditions. To lower the costs and facilitate high-throughput production, printing/coating processes are proving to be effective solutions. This work combined printing, coating, and chemical bath deposition processes of photoabsorber, buffer, and transparent conductive layers for the development of solution-processed photovoltaic systems. Using a sustainable approach, all inks were formulated using water and ethanol as solvents. Screen printing of the photoabsorber on fluorine-doped tin-oxide-coated glass followed by selenization, chemical bath deposition of the cadmium sulfide buffer, and final sputtering of the intrinsic zinc oxide and aluminum-doped zinc oxide top conductive layers delivered a 6.6% maximum efficiency solar cell, a record for screen-printed Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells. On the other hand, the all-non-vacuum-processed device with spray-coated intrinsic zinc-oxide- and tin-doped indium oxide top conductive layers delivered a 2.2% efficiency. The given approaches represent relevant steps towards the fabrication of sustainable and efficient Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells.