Investigations of temperature and power effects on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin‐film formation during a 3‐stage hybrid co‐sputtering/evaporation process

This work explores a strategy to bring together the advantages of co-evaporation and sputtering by developing a hybrid co-sputtering/evaporation process, where copper, indium, and gallium are sputtered with the thermal evaporation of selenium. A 3-stage hybrid co-sputtering/evaporation process for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin films solar cells has been developed by controlling the deposition parameters (temperature, sputtering power, and evaporation). (In,Ga)2Se3 layers are deposited in the first stage, followed by Cu2 − xSe and Cu2 − xSe/(In,Ga)2Se3 layers. Material properties at different steps were studied in detail by X-ray fluorescence, energy dispersive X-ray, scanning electron microscopy, glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Solar cells were completed leading to 9.7% efficiency.