Review of CIGS-based solar cells manufacturing by structural engineering

Abstract

The design and development of the next-generation power-efficient CIGS solar cells are at the research forefront due to their potential applications in renewable energy. Due to rich fundamental properties such as chemical and physical structures of the CIGS layer, cell scaffolding, and its promising applications like low cost, easy integration, and high efficiency, the CIGS-based solar cell systems are of considerable interest and received tremendous attention. In this article, we review the CIGS solar cells from the point of view of structural engineering. We explain the intrinsic parts of crystalline, optical, and electronic structures of the CIGS absorber layer up to the extrinsic part of the cell multilayer structure. For intrinsic structure, we primarily review the modification of the crystallinity or chemical composition of the CIGS and the effects that these modifications have on the physical properties such as the adjustment of the bandgap grading, effect of impurity or doping, selenization, oxidation processes, and the surface morphology and structure orientation. For extrinsic structure, the effect of substrates, electrical back contact, windows, n-buffer, grid, and antireflection layers will be discussed further, as well as the possibility of their tandem use with other solar cell thin films.

Improved SSD-assisted algorithm for surface defect detection of electromagnetic luminescence

“…We roughly determine the hyperparameter range [0,10] in determining batch-size. In the first iteration, we divide this range into [0,2], [2,4], [4,6], [6,8], and [8,10]. We randomly find one point in each portion, and we end up with five points.…”

“…Solar cells are prone to defects due to the complicated production and installation process, which will directly affect their conversion efficiency and service life. 2 Therefore, defect detection of solar cells in the production process is important to maintain a high degree of availability, reliability, and operational safety. 3 The study of solar cell defect detection has thus attracted sustained attention during the past decades.…”

Numerical Investigation of Cu₂O as Hole Transport Layer for High-Efficiency CIGS Solar Cell

“…Additionally, cadmium (Cd) is a toxic element and is classified as a human carcinogen. For these reasons, extensive research is being done on the alternative buffer layer, such as Zinc sulfides, oxides, and selenides [23][24][25][26]. Like CdS, zinc selenide (ZnSe) is an n-type semiconductor but with a wide bandgap and the most promising material to replace CdS [27][28][29][30].…”

Study of the Effect of Absorber Layer Thickness of CIGS Solar Cells with Different Band Gap Using SILVACO TCAD

“…Thin-film solar cells based on Cu, In, Ga, Se comply with the performance of thin-film photovoltaic panel technologies. In recent decades, they are among the most frequently used because of their high efficiency and low cost, for this reason, they are so promising and widely used [2,3].…”