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CuInSe 2 (CIS) thin films ~ 500-650 Å in thickness have been deposited on c-Si substrates by two-stage thermal co-evaporation starting either from In 2 Se 3 [according to In 2 Se 3 + (2Cu+Se) → 2(CuInSe 2 )] or from Cu 2-x Se [according to Cu 2 Se + (2In+3Se) → 2(CuInSe 2 )]. The design of such processes is facilitated by accurate calibrations of Cu and In 2 Se 3 growth rates on substrate/film surfaces obtained by real time spectroscopic ellipsometry (RTSE). The two-stage deposited CIS films were also studied by RTSE to deduce (i) the evolution of film structure upon conversion of the starting In 2 Se 3 or Cu 2-x Se films to CIS via Cu+Se or In+Se co-evaporation, respectively, and (ii) the complex dielectric functions of the starting films as well as the resulting CIS. The goal is to fabricate CIS that develops large grains as early as possible during growth for high quality materials in tandem solar cell applications. Results indicate that by depositing Cu 2-x Se in the first stage and exposing the film to In+Se flux in the second stage [as in the third stage of a three-stage CIS process] well-defined bandgap critical points with no detectable subgap absorption are noted in films as thin as 650 Å. 

Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) was performed on CuIn Se 2 (CIS) thin films and solar cells with a goal toward optimizing this low bandgap absorber for tandem applications. The CIS thin films and the absorbers in devices were deposited by one-stage thermal co-evaporation on silicon and on Mo-coated soda-lime glass substrates in a deposition system that has yielded CuIn 1-x Ga x Se 2 (CIGS) cells with > 17% efficiency using standard thickness (2.0 μm)x = 0.3 absorbers and > 13% using 0.7 μm low-Ga absorbers. In this study, a mapping capability for CIS Cu stoichiometry y = [Cu]/[In] over the film area was established based on a y-dependent parametric dielectric function (ε 1 , ε 2 ) with bandgap critical point E g decreasing linearly from 1.030 eV for y = 0.7 to 1.016 eV for y = 1.1. In addition, a full set of (ε 1 , ε 2 ) spectra measured for the CIS cell components enables analysis of SE data in terms of an accurate structural model for the device. With this model, spectra in the external quantum efficiency can be predicted, and deviations from this prediction can be attributed to incomplete collection of photogenerated electrons and holes as simulated with a carrier collection profile.