Barrier effect of AlN film in flexible Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells on stainless steel foil and solar cell

•The adhension between AlN film and Mo are verygood.•AlN film can be effectively used as the barrier of flexible CIGS solar cell on SS substrate.•AlN film is suitable as the insulation barrier of flexible CIGS solar cell on SS substrate.

The AlN film deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on stainless steel (SS) foils was used as the barrier in flexible Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells on stainless steel foil and characterized comprehensively by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), I–V, and QE measurements study. The study of AlN as insulation barrier in the flexible CIGS solar cell showed that the adhesion strength between the SS foil and the deposited AlN film was very strong even after annealing at high temperature at 530 °C. More importantly, a high resistance of over 10 MΩ was remained with the film with thickness of around 200 nm after annealing. This indicates that the AlN film is suitable as an effective insulation barrier in flexible CIGS solar cells based on SS foil. In addition, the XRD and SEM results showed that the AlN film did not influence the crystal structure of the Mo film which was deposited upon the AlN layer and used as the electrical contact in CIGS solar cells. It was found that the AlN film contributed to an improved crystallinity of the Mo contact layer compared to the bare SS foil. The combined results of secondary ion mass spectrometry, I–V and EQE measurements of the corresponding flexible CIGS solar cells confirmed that 1 μm-thick AlN film could be used as an efficient barrier layer in CIGS solar cells on SS foil.