Investigating the Potential of Amine-Thiol Solvent System for High-Efficiency CuInSe2 Devices

The amine-thiol solvent system was studied for the fabrication of thin-film chalcogenides and was shown to emerge as an impurity-free attractive alternative to highly hazardous hydrazine route due to its ability to dissolve pure metals/metal chalcogenides and produce inorganic films free of any organic residue. Effect of Se addition on film morphology and performance was also studied to provide new insights into the traditional processing of the amine-thiol system. With initial optimization, a 12.0 % total area (12.7 % active area) efficiency CuInSe₂ device with ~1.02 eV bandgap was fabricated, making it a current record for amine-thiol based CuInSe₂ system.