Non-toxic and environmentally friendly route for preparation of copper indium sulfide based thin film solar cells

In this study, copper based thin film solar cells with substrate structure have been built via spray pyrolysis method. Toxic material usage was avoided during the material deposition and the post-treatment steps. Novel device configuration of Mo/CuInS2/In2S3/ZnO/AZO-Ag-AZO was studied as a function of the In2S3 buffer layer thickness. In order to utilize the zinc oxide (ZnO) and aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) transparent conductive layers, deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD), on top of the spray pyrolyzed thin films, the RF power was lowered to 30 W. Although this minimized the unwanted penetration of the highly energetic particles, created during PVD process, sheet resistivity of the AZO films increased enormously. Hence very thin silver layer has been deposited between two AZO films. This resulted the decrease in the sheet resistivity more than 106 times. Electrical measurements under illumination revealed that short circuit current density (Jsc), open circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF) and efficiency (η) of the Mo/CuInS2/In2S3/ZnO/AZO-Ag-AZO type solar cells increased with increasing the thickness of the In2S3 layer. The maximum Jsc of 9.20 mA/cm2, Voc of 0.43 V, FF of 0.44 have been observed for the 0.94 μm-thick In2S3 layer. Extraordinarily thick buffer layer provided better diffusion barrier between the absorber and the TCO layers and also resulted better photosensitivity. These could be the key factors to produce substrate configuration of the spray pyrolyzed thin film solar cells.