System for manufacturing complete Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells in situ under vacuum

•A system for manufacturing Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells under vacuum was developed.•All layers required in a complete solar cell can be deposited in situ.•A pulsed evaporation of Se procedure was used for the absorber layer growth.•The best efficiency obtained was 10.2% for the cell with CdS buffer layer.•The system is versatile enough to change or add new materials. We present the development of a small foot-print physical vapor deposition (PVD) system for in-situ deposition of all layers required in a complete Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cell. Seven sputtering magnetrons and one valved-cracker source have been custom designed and manufactured for this system, named SpuTtering for Advanced Research (STAR). The purpose of STAR is to develop a technique to fabricate a complete CIGS solar cell, including contacts, absorber, buffer, and window layers, under high vacuum with the aim to transfer this technology to a future industrial production line. The system’s capabilities and its relatively high throughput place it somewhere in between research and industrial development levels. It is possible to work on the deposition of the back contact, the CIGS absorber, and the window layer of three solar cells simultaneously. Calibration data, selection of parameters for the deposition of the individual layers, and initial results of a complete CIGS solar cell developed with STAR are reported.