The role of grain boundaries and dislocations in various solar-cell materials on the corresponding device performance Daniel Abou-Ras 1, Sinju Thomas 1 , Dan Wargulski 1 , Jiro Nishinaga 2 1 Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany 2 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan While currently, the solar-module market is dominated by silicon-wafer-based photovoltaics, its potential for improvements in terms of the cost-performance ratio is limited. Thin-film solar cells exhibit in this respect much brighter perspectives and in addition, also the possibility for roll-to-roll production using flexible substrates. In the solar-cell stacks suitable for the mass production of thin-film solar modules, all functional layers are polycrystalline. Therefore, the role of grain boundaries and dislocations on the device performance has always been a matter of concern in the research and development of thin-film solar cells. The present work gives an overview of the current knowledge on this topic. Results from the analyses of microscopic structure-property relationships mainly by electron microscopy are presented. It will be shown that grain boundaries are always locations of enhanced nonradiative recombination in various solar absorber layers, and correspondingly, lead to a substantial decrease in open-circuit voltage of the solar cells. On the other hand, while dislocations contribute to enhanced nonradiative recombination in various solar-cell materials, these line defects exhibit similar recombination behaviors as the surrounding bulk material in Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 thin films. References 1. D. Abou-Ras, U. Bloeck, S. Caicedo-Dávila, A. Eljarrat, H. Funk, A. Hammud, S. Thomas, D.R. Wargulski, T. Lunkenbein, C.T. Koch, Correlative microscopy and monitoring of segregation processes in optoelectronic semiconductor materials and devices, J. Appl. Phys. 133, 121101 (2023), doi: 10.1063/5.0138952. 2. D. Abou-Ras, A. Nikolaeva, M. Krause, L. Korte, H. Stange, R. Mainz, E. Simsek Sanli, P.A. van Aken, T. Sugaya, J. Nishinaga, Optoelectronic inactivity of dislocations in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin films, phys. stat. sol. (RRL) 15 (2021) 2100042, doi: 10.1002/pssr.202100042. 3. M. Krause, A. Nikolaeva, M. Maiberg, P. Jackson, D. Hariskos, W. Witte, J.A. Márquez, S. Levcenco, T. Unold, R. Scheer, D. Abou-Ras, Microscopic origins of performance losses in highly efficient Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cells, Nature Comm. 11 (2020), doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17507-8. 4. D. Abou-Ras, S.S. Schmidt, N. Schäfer, J. Kavalakkatt, T. Rissom, T. Unold, R. Mainz, A. Weber, T. Kirchartz, E. Simsek Sanli, P.A. van Aken, Q.M. Ramasse, H.-J. Kleebe, D. Azulay, I. Balberg, O. Millo, O. Cojocaru-Mirédin, D. Barragan-Yani, K. Albe, J. Haarstrich, C. Ronning, Compositional and electrical properties of line and planar defects in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin films for solar cells - a review, Phys. Stat. Sol. (RRL) 10 (2016) 363-375, doi: 10.1002/pssr.201510440.
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