Correlative APT/EBIC/EBSD show grain boundaries with different traits have different composition

Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells have exceeded 23% efficiency even with its polycrystalline form. This indicates that grain boundaries (GBs) are not detrimental which is usually the case with Si solar cells. Our previous works have shown that GBs have diverse role in CIGS solar cells confirming all the three types of GBs (detrimental, neutral and benign) co-exist at the same time on the thin films in different amounts. However, the origin of these differences were unknown. In this work we combine atom probe tomography (APT) with electron beam induced current (EBIC) and with electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) to obtain information about the chemical, electrical and structural properties on identical GBs. Results show they are highly correlated.