The influence of incident angle on physical properties of a novel back contact prepared by oblique angle deposition

Abstract In this paper, oblique vacuum thermal evaporation and direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering technique are used to produce a novel back contact electrode (BCE) of CuInS2 solar cell. These novel back contact electrodes (BCEs) are based on a layered structure of Mo/Ag/Mo (MAM). The influence of vapor source incidence angle θ on optical-electrical properties of novel BCE is investigated by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Surface Profiler, Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), UV-vis-IR Spectrometer, and Four-point Probe Method. According to the analysis of AFM images of BCEs, the variation tendencies of surface roughness and uniformity are closely related to the incidence angle θ. The surface roughness increases with the increase of incidence angle θ, but the uniformity becomes poor at same time. This phenomenon can be attributed to the variation of interlayer Ag films (the density and inclined angle of Ag nanorods). The results of four-point probe test show that the novel BCE deposited by vapor source incidence angle θ equal to 45° owns the lowest resistance value of 3.71 × 10−8 Ω m, which is probably due to a loose and multi-point contact interface between Ag layer and top layer (Mo2). The reflectance of novel BCEs deposited by incident angle less than 45° is higher than that of normal bi-layer Mo (Mo12) BCE. As a result, the efficiency of corresponding solar cell may be upgraded.