Boron Doped Diamond Films As Electron Donors In Photovoltaics: An X-Ray Absorption And Hard X-Ray Photoemission Study

Highly boron-doped diamond films are investigated for their potential as transparent electron donors in solar cells. Specifically, the valence band offset between a diamond film (as electron donor) and Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 (CIGS) as light absorber is determined by a combination of soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, which is more depth-penetrating than standard soft X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In addition, a theoretical analysis of the valence band is performed, based on GW quasiparticle band calculations. The valence band offset is found to be small: VBO = VBMCIGS -VBMdiamond = 0.3 eV +/- 0.1 eV at the CIGS/Diamond interface and 0.0 eV +/- 0.1 eV from CIGS to bulk diamond. These results provide a promising starting point for optimizing the band offset by choosing absorber materials with a slightly lower valence band maximum. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.