Status of electroplating based CIGS technology development

CIGS is the leading thin film PV material in terms of it capability to yield high efficiency solar cells. Co-evaporation method already yielded solar cells with close to 20% efficiency. Despite this success, however, commercialization of CIGS has not been aggressive. One reason for this is the fact that CIGS is a complex material. The other reason is the difficulty of scaling up this technology while keeping the cost structure competitive. SoloPower has developed a low cost electrodeposition-based CIGS technology for large scale roll-to-roll manufacturing. The substrate is a flexible metallic foil. CIGS absorber layers are formed through annealing and thermal activation of electrodeposited precursor layers. Top and bottom contacts are formed by roll-to-roll sputtering approaches. The technique has excellent ability to control the composition of the deposited layers over large are substrates. After forming a roll of solar cells, devices are cut and then packaged in module structures. Flexible solar cells with an area of over 100 cm² were fabricated with over 12% efficiency. Over 1 m² area modules with an efficiency of 10% were also fabricated.