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Engineering of CIGS nanoparticle inks for colloidal stability, uniform film formation and application as HTL for perovskite solar cells

Khosroshahi, R ; Sharif University of Technology | 2021

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1016/j.jiec.2021.10.034
  3. Publisher: Korean Society of Industrial Engineering Chemistry , 2021
  4. Abstract:
  5. In this work, synthesis of CuIn0.75Ga0.25S2 (CIGS) nanoparticles, the formation of stable dispersion, deposition of high-quality films and, fabrication of thin-film Perovskite solar cells are reported. The stability of nanoparticle ink is crucial in the formation of device-quality films. The chalcogenide-based materials are widely used in thin-film solar cells; in particular, Cu(In,Ga)S2 are used as an absorber and hole transporting layer. In the present study, the nanoparticles of about 20 nm size and bandgap of 1.5 eV are synthesized using a heat-up method. A variety of solvents are used as dispersing media and the stability of the inks is evaluated by precise optical monitoring. We observe a clear dependence of ink stability to the polarity index of the solvent, where the best stability occurs at a polarity index of about 0.26–0.36, corresponding to a range of solvents including chloroform. The thin films that are spin-coated using CIGS chloroform ink show large cracks, presumably due to the high vapor pressure of chloroform and evaporation-induced stress in the film. We resolve this problem through low-temperature deposition, which resulted in highly uniform pin-hole and crack-free films. Finally, the optimum deposition condition is used to fabricate perovskite solar cells having about 16.5% efficiency with CIGS as a hole transport layer. © 2021 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
  6. Keywords:
  7. Cell engineering ; Chlorine compounds ; Convergence of numerical methods ; Copper compounds ; Deposition ; Gallium compounds ; Hole mobility ; Indium compounds ; Nanoparticles ; Organic solvents ; Perovskite ; Sols ; Stability ; Synthesis (chemical) ; Temperature ; Thin film solar cells ; Thin films ; Colloidal Stability ; CuInGaS2 ink ; Film formations ; High-quality films ; Nanoparticle inks ; Polarity index ; Stable dispersions ; Uniform film formation ; Uniform films ; UV/ Vis spectroscopy ; Perovskite solar cells
  8. Source: Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry ; 2021 ; 1226086X (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1226086X21005931