Abou-Ras, Daniel ; Schmidt, Sebastian S. ; Schäfer, Norbert ; Kavalakkatt, Jaison ; Rissom, Thorsten ; Unold, Thomas ; Kirchartz, Thomas ; Simsek Sanli, Ekin ; Aken, Peter A. van ; Ramasse, Quentin M. ; Kleebe, Hans-Joachim ; Azulay, Doron ; Balberg, Isaac ; Millo, Oded ; Cojocaru-Mirédin, Oana ; Barragan-Yani, Daniel ; Albe, Karsten ; Haarstrich, Jakob ; Ronning, Carsten (2016):
Compositional and electrical properties of line and planar defects in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin films for solar cells - a review.
In: Physica status solidi (RRL) - Rapid Research Letters, 10 (5), pp. 363-375. Wiley, ISSN 1862-6254, e-ISSN 1862-6270,
DOI: 10.1002/pssr.201510440,
[Article]

Abstract

The present review gives an overview of the various reports on properties of line and planar defects in Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 thin films for high-efficiency solar cells. We report results from various analysis techniques applied to characterize these defects at different length scales, which allow for drawing a consistent picture on structural and electronic defect properties. A key finding is atomic reconstruction detected at line and planar defects, which may be one mechanism to reduce excess charge densities and to relax deep-defect states from midgap to shallow energy levels. On the other hand, nonradiative Shockley–Read–Hall recombination is still enhanced with respect to defect-free grain interiors, which is correlated with substantial reduction of luminescence intensities. Comparison of the microscopic electrical properties of planar defects in Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 thin films with two-dimensional device simulations suggest that these defects are one origin of the reduced open-circuit voltage of the photovoltaic devices

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