Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 August 2013
The purpose of the present paper is to focus on the impact of oxygen gas partial pressure during the sputtering of i-ZnO and ZnMgO on the transient behavior of solar cells parameters when a CBD-ZnS buffer layer is used. Based on electrical characterization of cells, we have observed that the effect of light-soaking is different on J-V characteristics depending on the quantity of oxygen present during the first deposition time of the i-ZnO or ZnMgO layers. In fact, we have noticed that, when cells are prepared with standard i-ZnO, the efficiencies are very low and a pronounced transient behavior is observed. However, when the i-ZnO or ZnMgO is first formed by a few nanometers sputtered layer without any additive oxygen, depending on the thickness of this layer, the transient effects strongly decrease. It is then possible to reach efficiencies quite similar to the CdS reference cells, especially with ZnMgO, without any post-treatments.