High Efficiency CuInSe2 Photovoltaic Modules Deposited at Low Temperature by High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS)

为了实现可持续发展，我们家庭和交通工具中的能源需要从不污染环境的取之不尽用之不竭的来源供应。在地球形成之前，这样的一个来源就已经存在于我们的生活中，并将继续存在数十万年-当然是太阳。太阳光可以用太阳能电池发电。每一个被太阳照射的屋顶和墙壁都可以覆盖上太阳能电池板，并有可能用来发电。工业界通常采用玻璃等日常材料，并在其上涂上一层薄薄的半导体材料（称为吸收剂），吸收光并将其转化为电能，从而制造太阳能电池。我们的研究目标是发明一种全新的太阳能电池涂层生产方法，并提高我们对涂层的理解。这种新方法将使太阳能电池更便宜，在制造过程中使用更少的原材料和更少的电力。这种新方法基于一种名为HIPIMS（高功率脉冲磁控溅射）的技术，是“等离子体”技术家族的最新成员。在等离子体技术中，涂层是通过用精心准备的原子和离子轰击想要涂覆的表面来产生的。HIPIMS于1995年首次被发现，我们小组和其他地方的开创性工作已经表明，它产生了一种出色的等离子体，具有离子特性的组合，可以生产高效的太阳能电池。我们的团队是第一个使用HIPIMS制造太阳能电池的团队，我们的早期试验确实非常有希望。因为它是如此的新，所以我们还不了解HIPIMS制造太阳能电池的许多关键特性。HIPIMS产生大量独特和不寻常的等离子体，这些等离子体产生不同的层结构。我们正计划集中精力了解等离子体，层结构及其将光转化为电的效率之间的联系。这些问题的解决将是研究等离子体的科学家们感兴趣的，并将有助于技术人员学习如何应用HIPIMS来创建新的，更好的涂层。在研究中，我们将测量HIPIMS等离子体的特性，以了解等离子体的组成是如何改变的。我们将通过从等离子体中提取粒子并仔细分析它们的质量和能量来做到这一点。我们还将使用HIPIMS制作涂层，并测量它们的性能（例如它们的效率），并在电子显微镜下对其进行检查，以帮助我们了解这些性能与HIPIMS等离子体产生的微观结构之间的关系。在最后阶段，我们将在工业用机器中生产大型电池，以证明该过程不仅在科学上而且在商业上的有用性。我们的经验和理解应该帮助工业家开发制造工艺，可以产生新的，更好的太阳能电池。在几年内，我们的房子，汽车和移动的电话都可能由使用HIPIMS开发的太阳能电池供电！

To be sustainable, energy in our homes and transport needs to be supplied from an inexhaustible source which does not pollute the environment. One such source has been present in our lives since before the formation of planet Earth and will continue to exist for hundreds of thousands of years - it is, of course, the Sun. The light from the sun can be used to make electricity with a solar cell. Every roof top and wall which is lit by the sun can be covered with solar panels and potentially used to make energy. Industry often makes solar cells by taking an everyday material such as glass and coating it with thin layers of semiconductor materials (called absorbers) which absorb light and convert it to electricity. Our research aim is to invent a brand new method for producing solar cell coatings and improve our understanding of the layers. The new method will make solar cells more affordable by using less raw materials and less power during manufacture. It will be applicable to semiconductor materials of today and the future.The new method is based on a technology called HIPIMS (which stands for High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering) and is a very recent addition to a family of "plasma" techniques, in which the coating is produced by bombarding the surface you want to coat with carefully prepared atoms and ions. HIPIMS was first discovered in 1995, and pioneering work in our group and elsewhere has already shown that it produces an excellent plasma, with a combination of ion properties which should produce highly efficient solar cells. Our group was the first to use HIPIMS to make solar cells and our early trials do indeed turn out to be very promising.Because it is so new, there are a number of key features of making solar cells by HIPIMS which we do not yet understand. HIPIMS produces a great range of unique and unusual plasmas which create different structures of layers. We are planning to focus our efforts on understanding the link between plasma, structure of the layer and its efficiency in converting light to electricity. Answering these questions would be of interest to scientists who study plasmas, and would help technologists to learn how to apply HIPIMS to create new, better coatings.In the research we will measure properties of HIPIMS plasmas to understand how the composition of the plasma can be changed. We will do this by extracting particles from the plasma and carefully analysing their mass and energy. We will also make coatings using HIPIMS and measure their properties (for example how efficient they are) and examine them under electron microscopes to help our understanding of how the properties relate to the microscopic structure produced by the HIPIMS plasma. In the final stages we will produce large cells in machines used in industry to demonstrate the usefulness of the process not only in science but in business as well. Our experience and understanding should help industrialists to develop manufacturing processes which can generate new, better solar cells. In a few years our houses, cars and mobile phones may all be powered by solar cells developed using HIPIMS!