Rommel Noufi, Principal Scientist and Group Manager of Thin Film PV, National Renewable Energy Laboratory "High Efficiency CIGS Solar Cells: "Technology Trends and Materials
Requirement"
This talk is primarily only CIGS-specific, not c-Si or CdTe. Notable only 3 equipment-only players in the overall CIS marketplace, all others are panel manufacturers. CIGS is closely behind c-Si performance, should close the gap in relatively near term. Good performance on flexible substrates indicates high potential to compete using low temperature processes.
Long term stability is a major challenge to hit 25 year lifetime requirement. Passivation/barrier performance of end module needs improvement. Regarding processing, uniformity over a large area is a problem, which needs to be optimized to also improve output and yield. A role for in-line process monitoring control on a comprehensive basis for composition etc. remains unfilled. Material engineering needs to be pursued to improve the conversion efficiency. 15% CIGS conversion efficiency is enough today to promise good market position going forward. Scalability from Pilot Line to high volume Manufacturing is the major immediate hurdle for the top end producers. Cost of the CIGS-layer materials and better TCO films are the highest cost benefit materials areas where improvement is sought, followed by substrate / encapsulation. "Five 9's" purity not necessarily required for the CIGS layer materials. 6 minute or more CIGS dep time must be reduced to around 1 minute.
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