Microstructural properties of the surface of Cu(In,Ga)Se/sub 2/ thin films

We examine the micro-structural properties, e.g. defects due to misorientation, and dislocations, for CIGS films prepared by our "3-stage process." We found using TEM and EDS that the composition and certain structural properties of the surface region are different from the bulk. Specifically, we observe high density of dislocations in a plane parallel to the surface, a distance of 150 to 250 nm. The extent of the dislocation network seems to correlate with the performance of devices based on these films.