The Effect of Sulfurization Temperature on CuIn(Se,S)(2) Solar Cells Synthesized by Electrodeposition

Abstract

The properties of thin film solar cells based on electrodeposited CuIn(Se,S)(2) were investigated. The proposed solar cell fabrication method involves a single-step CuInSe2 thin film electrodeposition followed by sulfurization in a tube furnace to form a CuIn(Se,S)(2) quaternary phase. A sulfurization temperature of 450-550 degrees C significantly affected the performance of the CuIn(Se,S)(2) thin film solar cell in addition to its composition, grain size and bandgap. Sulfur(S) substituted for selenium(Se) at increasing rates with higher sulfurization temperature, which resulted in an increase in overall bandgap of the CuIn(Se,S)(2) thin film. The highest conversion efficiency of 3.12% under air mass (AM) 1.5 illumination was obtained from the 500 degrees C-sulfurized solar cell. The highest External Quantum Efficiency (EQE) was also observed at the sulfurization temperature of 500 degrees C. (C) The Author(s) 2014. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved.