3D and Multimodal X-Ray Microscopy Reveals the Impact of Voids in CIGS Solar Cells.

Small voids in the absorber layer of thin-film solar cells are generally suspected to impair photovoltaic performance. They have been studied on Cu(In,Ga)Se cells with conventional laboratory techniques, albeit limited to surface characterization and often affected by sample-preparation artifacts. Here, synchrotron imaging is performed on a fully operational as-deposited solar cell containing a few tens of voids.

Multi-modal characterization of kesterite thin-film solar cells: experimental results and numerical interpretation.

We report a multi-modal study of the electrical, chemical and structural properties of a kesterite thin-film solar cell by combining the spatially-resolved X-ray beam induced current and fluorescence imaging techniques for the evaluation of a fully functional device on a cross-section. The data allowed the correlation of the chemical composition, defects at interfaces and inhomogeneous deposition of the layers with the local charge-collection efficiency of the device. We support our observations with Monte Carlo simulations of high-energy X-ray interactions with the semiconductor device, and finite-volume modeling of the charge-collection efficiency.

Structural characterization of chaos game fractals using small-angle scattering analysis.

Small-angle scattering (SAS) technique is applied to study the nano and microstructural properties of spatial patterns generated from chaos game representation (CGR). Using a simplified version of Debye formula, we calculate and analyze in momentum space, the monodisperse scattering structure factor from a system of randomly oriented and non-interacting 2D Sierpinski gaskets (SG). We show that within CGR approach, the main geometrical and fractal properties, such as the overall size, scaling factor, minimal distance between scattering units, fractal dimension and the number of units composing the SG, can be recovered.

Small-Angle Scattering from Nanoscale Fat Fractals.

Small-angle scattering (of neutrons, x-ray, or light; SAS) is considered to describe the structural characteristics of deterministic nanoscale fat fractals. We show that in the case of a polydisperse fractal system, with equal probability for any orientation, one obtains the fractal dimensions and scaling factors at each structural level. This is in agreement with general results deduced in the context of small-angle scattering analysis of a system of randomly oriented, non-interacting, nano-/micro-fractals.