Surface nanostructuring of CuIn1−x Ga x Se2 films using argon plasma treatment

In this work we report a phenomenon of the self-formation of nanostructure arrays during low-energy inductively coupled argon plasma treatment of the surface of copper indium gallium diselenide films grown by different methods on glass substrates. Selenization, pulsed laser deposition and multistage co-evaporation technological methods were used for the growth of polycrystalline CuIn1−x Ga x Se2 (0.04 ≤ x ≤ 0.45) films. The plasma treatment of the surface of the films grown by all three methods resulted in the plasma-assisted self-formation of arrays of uniform cylindrical or conical nanostructures with the surface density of (0.8–1.8) × 1011 cm−2. Using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, we describe the morphological parameters and chemical composition of the fabricated nanostructures and discuss possible physical mechanisms of the observed plasma-assisted nanostructuring.