Application of femtosecond laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for quantitative analysis of thin Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cell films

This work reports that the composition of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin solar cell films can be quantitatively predicted with high accuracy and precision by femtosecond laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (fs-LA-ICP-MS). It is demonstrated that the results are strongly influenced by sampling conditions during fs-laser beam (λ = 1030 nm, τ = 450 fs) scanning on the CIGS surface. The fs-LA-ICP-MS signals measured at optimal sampling conditions generally provide a straight line calibration with respect to the reference concentrations measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The concentration ratios predicted by fs-LA-ICP-MS showed high accuracy, to 95-97% of the values measured with ICP-OES, for Cu, In, Ga, and Se elements.