It is known that the efficiency of flexible Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 (CIGS) solar cells fabricated on stainless-steel (STS) substrates deteriorates due to iron (Fe) and Cr impurities diffusing into the CIGS absorber layer. To overcome this problem, a nanoscale homomorphic chromium oxide layer was formed as a diffusion barrier by thermal oxidation on the surface of STS substrates for 1 min at 600 degrees C in oxygen atmosphere. By TEM and grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), it was confirmed that the formed oxide layer on surface of STS substrates was a Cr2O3 layer. It was found that the formed homomorphic Cr2O3 thin layer of about 15 nm thickness was an effective diffusion barrier to reduce impurity diffusion into the CIGS layer by secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). In contrast to the efficiency of CIGS solar cell without homomorphic Cr2O3 diffusion layer is 8.6%, whereas with diffusion barrier it increases to 10.6% because of impurities such as Fe and Cr from the STS substrate into the CIGS layer. It reveals that the layer formed on the surface of STS substrate by thermal oxidation process plays an important role in increasing the performance of CIGS solar cells. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.