In-situ X-ray diffraction annealing study of electroplated and sputtered Cu-In-Ga precursors for application to sequential Cu(In,Ga)Se2 processes

We study by in-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) in a unique, custom-made furnace mimicking an industrial setup, the effect of pre-annealing on electroplated and sputtered thin films of Cu-In-Ga, as precursor material for Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGS)-based solar cells. In the first part of the paper, the properties of the as-deposited precursors are...

Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition for large area and flexible electronics

Thickness evaluation of AlOx barrier layers for encapsulation of flexible PV modules in industrial environments by normal reflectance and machine learning

Flexible photovoltaic (PV) devices, such as those based on Cu (In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) and perovskites, use polymeric front sheets for encapsulation that do not provide sufficient protection against the environment. The addition of nanometric AlxO layers by spatial atomic layer deposition (S-ALD) to these polymeric materials can highly improve...

In-situ XRD study on the selenisation parameters driving Ga/In interdiffusion in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 in a versatile, industrially-relevant selenisation furnace

The selenisation of Cu-Ga-In metallic precursors is investigated by in-situ X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) in a selenisation tool which mimics at the laboratory scale an industrial tool (thus fully scalable) and allows fine control over the selenisation parameters and reproducibility. In this setup, the interdiffusion of Ga and In was significantly...

In-situ XRD study of Ga/In interdiffusion in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 in an industrially relevant selenization furnace

A custom-made, highly versatile and industrially-relevant selenisation furnace with in situ XRD capabilities is presented. Mimicking an RD scale furnace used in our baseline at TNO/Solliance, it uses only elemental chalcogens and gives control over a wide set of process parameters not accessible in commercial setups. It additionally allows fast...

Characterization of nano-porosity in molecular layer deposited films

Molecular layer deposition (MLD) delivers (ultra-) thin organic and hybrid materials, with atomic-level thickness control. However, such layers are often reported to be unstable under ambient conditions, due to the interaction of water and oxygen with the hybrid structure, consequently limiting their applications. In this contribution, we...

Atmospheric pressure plasma enhanced spatial ALD of silver

The authors have investigated the growth of thin silver films using a unique combination of atmospheric process elements: spatial atomic layer deposition and an atmospheric pressure surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma source. Silver films were grown on top of Si substrates with good purity as revealed by resistivity values as low as 18μΩ...