In-situ X-ray Microscopy

In-situ X-ray Microscopy

Our goal is to address the following industrially relevant effects :

  • (1) Operando electromigration of species of species to grain boundaries, dislocations and interfaces
  • (2) Metastable defects observed in CIGS after illumination and/or applied bias voltage
  • (3) Nanoscale phase segregation as a function of growth conditions
  • (4) Phase decomposition and interlayer diffusion as a function of kinetics and thermodynamics of annealing (time, temperature, atmosphere, and constituent element overpressures)
  • (5) Correlate the impacts of these effects on solar cell conversion efficiency.

In-situ X-ray MicroscopyUnderstanding the effects of elemental and charge migration under operating conditions will allow the CIGS community to modify and/or add processing steps that could claim the open circuit voltages allowing the cells to harvest more energy from each absorbed photon and position this technology closer to the 6ยข/kWh SunShot initiative goal.