Comparative study of Cu2ZnSnSe4 solar cells growth on transparent conductive oxides and molybdenum substrates

Temgoua, Solange; Bodeux, Romain; Mollica, Fabien; Naghavi, Negar

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2019.10.050

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…In addition, Ag has also been described to aid in reducing planar defects, Cu vacancies, Cu Zn antisite defects, and reducing nonradiative bulk recombination. [ 29–35 ]…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Leow

Tan

et al. 2021

Solar RRL

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Semitransparent solar cells are able to capitalize on land scarcity in urban environments by co‐opting windows and glass structures as power generators, thereby expanding the capacity of photovoltaics to meet energy needs. To be successful, devices must be efficient, possess good visual transparency, long‐term stability, and low cost. Copper zinc tin sulfide is a promising thin‐film material that consists of earth‐abundant elements. For optical transparency, the usual molybdenum back contact is replaced with a transparent conducting oxide (TCO). However, due to subsequent high‐temperature annealing, the TCO degrades, losing conductivity, or forms a poor interface with CZTS. Lower temperatures mitigate this issue but hinder grain growth in CZTS films. Herein, cadmium substitution and silver and sodium doping are used to aid grain growth and improve film quality at lower annealing temperatures. Thin molybdenum is sputtered on TCO to help improve the interface transition postannealing by conversion to MoS2. Rapid thermal processing is used to minimize high‐temperature exposure time to preserve the TCO. With these methods, a semitransparent device with a front illumination efficiency of 2.96% is demonstrated.

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“…In addition, Ag has also been described to aid in reducing planar defects, Cu vacancies, Cu Zn antisite defects, and reducing nonradiative bulk recombination. [ 29–35 ]…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Leow

Tan

et al. 2021

Solar RRL

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“…Moreover, higher annealing temperature could also induce the decomposition of CZTSSe and diffusion of oxygen from FTO to the absorber layer, thus damaging the interface and result in additional ZnO secondary phases. [ 15 ]…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the aforementioned literature review, we can see that the device based on TCO substrates suffers from high parasitic losses owing to deterioration of back contact characteristics resulting from post annealing at elevated temperature and/or longer time. [ 5,7,14,15 ] The frequently adopted strategy to address this issue is based on interfacial engineering. However, this strategy relies on the insertion of interlayers by a sputtering process which is rather complex and suffers from the risk of introducing an impurity into the absorber.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bifacial Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ Thin Film Solar Cell Based on Molecular Ink and Rapid Thermal Processing

Khan

et al. 2021

Adv Materials Inter

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The use of transparent conducting oxides (TCO) as a back contact for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) thin film solar cell enables light absorption from both front and rear sides and allows for the fabrication of semi‐transparent photovoltaic devices. However, the CZTSSe solar cell based on TCO substrate suffers from high parasitic losses owing to the long post‐annealing time at elevated temperature required for high‐quality absorber. This work aims to overcome this issue by carefully tailoring the annealing conditions to obtain high‐performance solar cell. Rapid thermal processing is used to instantaneously generate high Se vapor pressure at target temperature and shorten the annealing time. The crystalline quality, morphology, and particularly the photovoltaic performance of the resulting CZTSSe thin film are systematically investigated. It is found that the increase of annealing temperature and time improves the crystalline quality but unfortunately deteriorates the device performance owing to increasing parasitic losses. Increasing the amount of Se allows to get highly crystalline absorber within 7 min of annealing, yielding a total area 5.56% efficient CZTSSe solar cell with front illumination resulting from reducing parasitic losses. This work provides a simple approach to preserve the back contact without using a complex interfacial layer.

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“…The efficiency of the benchmark CZTSe solar cell used herein is 0.51%, which is similar to the conversion efficiency reported by many studies. [36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] The results showed that the conversion efficiency changed with the rectification characteristics. It can be seen from Table 3 that the CZTSe thin-film solar cell prepared from the CZTSe absorber layers grown at a faster heating rate leads to better values in its photoelectric conversion efficiency (V oc ), short-circuit current density (J sc ), and fill factor (FF).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppressing the formation of double‐layer in Cu ₂ ZnSnSe ₄ ( CZTSe ) absorber layer by facile heating process through nontoxic selenium atmosphere

Lai

Yang

Hsu

et al. 2021

Intl J of Energy Research

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The Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 (CZTSe) absorber layer is typically prepared by postselenization with a metal precursor. In the process of selenization, the loss of SnSe x is a common phenomenon, resulting in both an atomic-ratio change and double-layer distribution of the absorber layer. This change affects the film properties. Additionally, excessive deviation from stoichiometry causes the formation of secondary-phase compounds. Moreover, the double-layer distribution reduces the carrier transport between the Mo back electrode and the CZTSe absorber film, inhibiting the effectiveness of the CZTSe solar cell. To address these problems, this study used Cu x Se and Zn x Sn 1Àx targets as the sputtering target materials to reduce the loss of SnSe x during the selenization of precursor films. In addition, the effect of heating rate on the atomic ratio of the absorber layer was explored by adjusting the heating rate, which is one of the selenization parameters. The results showed that faster heating rates reduced the loss of SnSe x , adjusted the Zn/Sn ratio in the absorber layer, and decreased ZnSe-related defects. In this way, the double-layer distribution was improved, air holes were reduced, and crystal structure characteristics of the films were enhanced. Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy showed that the signal of the ZnSe-related defect decreased, and the band tail effect became insignificant. The CZTSe absorber layer fabricated under different heating rates is used to prepare the CZTSe solar cell with a photoelectric conversion efficiency ranging from 0.51% to 5.6%.

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Comparative study of Cu2ZnSnSe4 solar cells growth on transparent conductive oxides and molybdenum substrates

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Bifacial Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ Thin Film Solar Cell Based on Molecular Ink and Rapid Thermal Processing

Suppressing the formation of double‐layer in Cu ₂ ZnSnSe ₄ ( CZTSe ) absorber layer by facile heating process through nontoxic selenium atmosphere

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Comparative study of Cu2ZnSnSe4 solar cells growth on transparent conductive oxides and molybdenum substrates

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Solution‐Processed Semitransparent CZTS Thin‐Film Solar Cells via Cation Substitution and Rapid Thermal Annealing

Bifacial Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 Thin Film Solar Cell Based on Molecular Ink and Rapid Thermal Processing

Suppressing the formation of double‐layer in Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 ( CZTSe ) absorber layer by facile heating process through nontoxic selenium atmosphere

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Bifacial Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ Thin Film Solar Cell Based on Molecular Ink and Rapid Thermal Processing

Suppressing the formation of double‐layer in Cu ₂ ZnSnSe ₄ ( CZTSe ) absorber layer by facile heating process through nontoxic selenium atmosphere