Photovoltaic Technology - CIGS Thin Film PV

Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) thin film PV is a thin film PV technology in its early stage of large scale commercialization.  CIGS has the advantage of a high cell efficiency (approaching 20%) and module efficiency (~ 13%), a direct bandgap, a high absorption coefficient, and processes that can work for low cost, large scale manufacturing, including roll-to-roll substrates of polymer or stainless steel.  The electronic properties of the cell are very tolerant to compositional variance of the Cu content.  The CuInSe₂ can be alloyed with Ga (common), Al and S to engineer the bandgap over a wide range for improved performance. 

The main area for improvement of CIGS thin film PV is performance reliability and uniformity as the manufacturing is scaled up.

The schematic of the CIGS Thin Film PV device structure (below) illustrates some of the ways surface analysis can help. Please move your mouse over the boxes below for more information or click here and download the application discussion.

Additional Information

• CIGS Application Discussion BR045
• Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) Technique Note TN103
• Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) Technique Note TN101
• X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) Technique Note TN100
• Time-of-Flight SIMS (TOF-SIMS) Technique Note TN104
• Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) Technique Note TN110
• Analysis of Contaminants by DHS/GC/MS AN385
• Cause and Location of Delamination of Multi-layer Metal Foil by XPS AN447
• Physical and Chemical Characterization of Multi-layer Thin Films AN353
• SIMS Detection Limits of Selected Elements in ZnO Under Normal Depth Profiling Conditions AN426
• Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) Characterization of an Ultra-thin Multilayer Film AN450
• Identification of Interface Contamination Using Field Emission Auger Electron Spectroscopy (FE-AES) AN445
• Organic Contamination on Surfaces AN378
• Characterization of Surface Contamination BN1365
• Measuring the Morphological Structure of Porous Materials BN1504