The performance of the chatcopyrite material Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 (CIGS) used as an absorber layer in thin-film photovoltaic devices is significantly affected by the presence of native defects. The deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) technique is used in this work to characterize the defect properties, yielding relevant information about the defect types, their capture cross-sections, and energy levels and densities in the CIGS cells. Three solar cells developed using different absorber growth technologies were analyzed using DLTS, capacitance-voltage (C-V), and capacitance-temperature (C-T) techniques. It was found that CIS cells grown at the University of Florida exhibits a middle-gap defect level that may relate to the cell's low fill factor and open-circuit voltage values observed. A high efficiency (eta(c) > 18%) CIGS cell produced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was found to contain three minority-carrier (electron) traps and a 13% CIGS cell produced by the Energy Photovoltaics Inc. (EPV) exhibited one majority (hole) trap. The approach followed using the DLTS technique serves as a paradigm for revealing the presence of significant defect levels in absorber materials, and may be used to support the identification of remedial processing operations. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.