Temperature dependency of the Ga/In distribution in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 absorbers in high temperature processes

The current article reports about the influence of temperature and glass substrate on Ga/In interdiffusion and chalcopyrite phase formation in the stacked elemental layer process. According to the Shockley-Queisser limit the optimum for single junction devices is near 1.4 eV, which is strongly coupled on the Ga/(Ga+In) ratio of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin film solar cells. To increase the Ga content in the active region of the Cu(In,Ga)Se2 a 70:30 CuGa alloy target is used. An increase of the selenization temperature leads to a more homogeneous Ga/In distribution and a less pronounced Ga agglomeration at the back contact. The Ga/In interdiffusion rates for different selenization temperatures and substrates were estimated with the model of a two layer system. At the highest selenization temperature used an absorber band gap of 1.12 eV was realized, which is similar to typical values of absorbers produced during the co-evaporation process. The Na diffusion into the Cu(In,Ga)Se2 is weakly temperature dependent but strongly influenced by the choice of the glass substrate composition.