Multimodal X-ray imaging of grain-level properties and performance in a polycrystalline solar cell

A. Ulvestad, S. O. Hruszkewycz*, M. V. Holt, M. O. Hill, I. Calvo-Almazán, S. Maddali, X. Huang, H. Yan, E. Nazaretski, Y. S. Chu, L. J. Lauhon, N. Rodkey, M. I. Bertoni, M. E. Stuckelberger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

The factors limiting the performance of alternative polycrystalline solar cells as compared with their single-crystal counterparts are not fully understood, but are thought to originate from structural and chemical heterogeneities at various length scales. Here, it is demonstrated that multimodal focused nanobeam X-ray microscopy can be used to reveal multiple aspects of the problem in a single measurement by mapping chemical makeup, lattice structure and charge collection efficiency simultaneously in a working solar cell. This approach was applied to micrometre-sized individual grains in a Cu(In,Ga)Se2 polycrystalline film packaged in a working device. It was found that, near grain boundaries, collection efficiency is increased, and that in these regions the lattice parameter of the material is expanded. These observations are discussed in terms of possible physical models and future experiments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1316-1321
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Synchrotron Radiation
Volume26
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2019

Funding

X-ray nanodiffraction experiments and data reduction were supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Materials Science and Engineering Division. MES, NR, MIB were supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy under NSF CA No. EEC-1041895. MES, MIB were partially supported by the US Department of Energy under contracts DEEE0005948 and DEEE0008163. MOH acknowledges tuition and salary support of the NSF GRFP. The XRD characterization work of MOH and LJL is supported by NSF DMR-1611341. MVH acknowledges support from the Center for Nanoscale Materials, an Office of Science User Facility supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract No. DEAC02- 06CH11357. This research used the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (HXN) Beamline at 3-ID of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract No. DE-SC0012704.

Keywords

  • Multimodal characterization
  • Scanning nanodiffraction
  • Solar cell materials
  • X-ray-beam-induced current

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Radiation
  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Instrumentation

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