Design and Fabrication of 1-D CIGS/CdS/ZnO Nanostructured Arrays for Solar Cell Applications

Chalcopyrite Cu(In1-xGax)Se2 (CIGS) has be considered as a promising candidate for solar cell applications. While high conversion efficiency of about 20% has been demonstrated in thin film CIGS solar cell, its wide commercial applications have not yet been realized. This is mainly due to the difficultly in achieving controllable and uniform composition over large area and the relatively high manufacturing cost involved in the vacuum co-evaporation/sputtering processes. One possible approach to alleviate these problems is to prepare CIGS nanostructures using solution based approaches which are typically of much lower cost. Using the CIGS nanostructures for making solar cells can potentially offer additional advantages of increasing the p-n junction area and improving the charge collection efficiency.The present project proposes to develop low-cost solution-based approaches for making CIGS based solar cell. CIGS nanoparticles and nanorods with controllable compositions would first be synthesized by solution-based chemical reactions. Arrays of CIGS/CdS/ZnO nanostructures would then be prepared on glass substrates again with solution-based approaches. Solar cells consisting arrays of ZnO nanorod/CdS nanoshell/CIGS nanoparticles coating and CIGS nanorod/CdS nanoparticle coating/ZnO nanoparticle coating would be prepared and characterized. Key parameters controlling the photovoltaic and charge conduction processes would be investigated and correlated to the solar cell performance.