Application of femtosecond laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for quantitative analysis of thin Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 solar cell films

Abstract

This work reports that the composition of Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 (CIGS) thin solar cell films can be quantitatively predicted with high accuracy and precision by femtosecond laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (fs-LA-ICP-MS). It is demonstrated that the results are strongly influenced by sampling conditions during fs-laser beam (lambda = 1030 nm, tau = 450 fs) scanning on the CIGS surface. The fs-LA-ICP-MS signals measured at optimal sampling conditions generally provide a straight line calibration with respect to the reference concentrations measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The concentration ratios predicted by fs-LA-ICP-MS showed high accuracy, to 95-97% of the values measured with ICP-OES, for Cu, In, Ga, and Se elements. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.