Interface engineering between CuInSe2 and ZnO

In this contribution the interest is centered on interaction phenomena that occur between the CuInSe₂, the chemical bath deposition (CBD) used to grow buffer layers and the RF sputtered ZnO windows. The potential output of a better understanding of these interfacial aspects is to permit high quality device synthesis, not only without the use of Cd, but without the need of interrupting the vacuum processing between the absorber and the window synthesis. Direct CuInSe ₂/ZnO structures are optimized here to be 10.5% efficient, limited only by their low (less than 400 mV) open circuit voltages. Different methods were explored to try to overcome these limiting mechanisms and attempts were made using jV(T) analysis to identify them. The V_oc can be improved by the use of (CBD) buffer layers, well known for CdS but also true for a list of other materials. The reasons for such results are possibly at the interfacial chemistry level