Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) is a promising low‐cost photovoltaic material with a 1D crystal structure. The grain orientation and defect passivation play a critical role in determining the performance of polycrystalline Sb2Se3 thin‐film solar cells. Here, a seed layer is introduced on a molybdenum (Mo) substrate to template the growth of a vertically oriented, columnar Sb2Se3 absorber layer by closed space sublimation. By controlling the grain orientation and compactness of the Sb2Se3 seeds, obtain high‐quality Sb2Se3 absorber layers with passive Sb2Se3/Mo interfaces is obtained, which in turn improve the transport of photoexcited charge carriers through the absorber layer and its interfaces. Post‐deposition annealing of absorber layers in ambient air is further utilized to passivate the defects in Sb2Se3 and enhance the quality of the front heterojunction. As a result of systematic processing optimization, Sb2Se3 planar heterojunction solar cells are fabricated in substrate configuration with a champion power conversion efficiency of 8.5%.

Bifacial solar cells have the potential to maintain energy output higher than monofacial devices under unfavorable weather conditions. A transparent back‐buffer layer which can passivate the interface and improve the minority carrier lifetime is critical in CdTe‐based bifacial devices. Herein, solution‐processed CuxCryOz as a promising back‐buffer for CdTe/CdS solar cells is demonstrated. The carrier lifetimes measured at the front and back of the device are 31.2 and 3.1 ns, respectively, which correspond to an increase of ≈38% and 138%, respectively, compared to the reference device. This dramatic improvement in lifetime results in a 100% increase in short‐circuit current measured with backside illumination. The best bifacial device has efficiencies 7.6% and 12.5%, respectively, from back and front illumination, yielding a bifaciality factor of 0.60.

Antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) solar cells are an environmentally friendly and cost-effective photovoltaic technology. In this work, we fabricate Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells using closed-space sublimation followed by postdeposition selenization. We investigate the effects of the selenization temperature on the structural and morphological properties of Sb 2 Se 3 films and photovoltaic performance of the corresponding devices.The results indicate that a proper selenization temperature is critical to achieving Sb 2 Se 3 films with large grains, uniform morphology, high crystallinity, desired crystal orientations, and increased carrier density. By optimizing the selenization temperature, we obtained Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells with a power-conversion efficiency of 6.43%.

An accurate assessment of bifacial solar cells under concurrent bifacial illumination is critical to evaluate their real photovoltaic performance. In this work, we demonstrate bifacial perovskite solar cells with bifacial...