Fabrication of vacuum-evaporated SnS/CdS heterojunction for PV applications

Ghosh, B.; Das, M.; Banerjee, Pushan; Das, Subrata

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2008.03.016

Cited by 113 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…4,5 SnS (Refs. 6-10) is also being considered as absorber material for thin film PV cells: [11][12][13][14][15] it is a semiconductor with a layered structure, an optical band gap of $1.3 eV, which is in the optimal range for solar cells (1.1-1.5 eV), and high absorption in the visible (absorption coefficient >10 4 cm…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optoelectronic properties of single-layer, double-layer, and bulk tin sulfide: A theoretical study

Tritsaris¹,

Malone²,

Kaxiras³

2013

Journal of Applied Physics

135

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SnS is a metal monochalcogenide suitable for use as absorber material in thin film photovoltaic cells. Its structure is an orthorhombic crystal of weakly coupled layers, each layer consisting of strongly bonded Sn-S units. We use first-principles calculations to study model single-layer, double-layer, and bulk structures of SnS in order to elucidate its electronic structure. We find that the optoelectronic properties of the material can vary significantly with respect to the number of layers and the separation between them: the calculated band gap is wider for fewer layers (2.72 eV, 1.57 eV, and 1.07 eV for single-layer, double-layer, and bulk SnS, respectively) and increases with tensile strain along the layer stacking direction (by $55 meV/1% strain). V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optoelectronic properties of single-layer, double-layer, and bulk tin sulfide: A theoretical study

Tritsaris¹,

Malone²,

Kaxiras³

2013

Journal of Applied Physics

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…). 1 There have been numerous reports on SnS-based thin film solar cells with various buffer layers, including SnS 2 , 2 CdO, 3 Cd 2 SnO 4 , 3 CdS, [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Cd 1Àx Zn x S, 7 ZnO, 11,12 TiO 2 , 13 PbS, 14 and a-Si. 15 The prevalent low efficiencies can be attributed to various sources, such as bulk material impurities and defects, interface trap states, and notably unfavorable heterojunction band alignment.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Band alignment of SnS/Zn(O,S) heterojunctions in SnS thin film solar cells

Sun

Haight²,

Sinsermsuksakul

et al. 2013

Appl. Phys. Lett.

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“…1 These layered semiconductors are also touted as potential photovoltaic materials due to their high absorption coefficients with bandgaps ranging from around 1 eV to 2.2 eV. [7][8][9] A unique characteristic of this class of materials is that the chalcogenide atoms are chemically saturated and, as a result, the inter-layer interaction along the crystallographic c-axis is mainly by the weak vdW force. 10,11 This type of materials is commonly referred as vdWEs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…29 SnS-based heterojunction photovoltaic cells (PVCs) have been fabricated by various techniques with CdS as the common choice for the n-type semiconductor. 8,22,30 However, to date the reported conversion efficiency of the SnS-based PVCs are still quite low in the range of $1.3%. 31 Recent work by Ichimura showed that one of the reasons for such low cell efficiency may due to the large conduction band offset at the CdS/SnS heterojunction resulting in an energy barrier at the junction and thereby blocking the photogenerated carriers in the SnS layer.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Molecular beam epitaxy growth of high quality p-doped SnS van der Waals epitaxy on a graphene buffer layer

Wang¹,

Leung²,

Fong³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

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We report on the systematic investigation of optoelectronic properties of tin (IV) sulfide (SnS) van der Waals epitaxies (vdWEs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technique. Energy band simulation using commercial CASTEP code indicates that SnS has an indirect bandgap of size 0.982 eV. Furthermore, our simulation shows that elemental Cu can be used as a p-type dopant for the material. Growth of high quality SnS thin films is accomplished by MBE technique using graphene as the buffer layer. We observed significant reduction in the rocking curve FWHM over the existing published values. Crystallite size in the range of 2–3 μm is observed which is also significantly better than the existing results. Measurement of the absorption coefficient, α, is performed using a Hitachi U-4100 Spectrophotometer system which demonstrate large values of α of the order of 104 cm−1. Sharp cutoff in the values of α, as a function of energy, is observed for the films grown using a graphene buffer layer indicating low concentration of localized states in the bandgap. Cu-doping is achieved by co-evaporation technique. It is demonstrated that the hole concentration of the films can be controlled between 1016 cm−3 and 5 × 1017cm−3 by varying the temperature of the Cu K-cell. Hole mobility as high as 81 cm2V−1s−1 is observed for SnS films on graphene/GaAs(100) substrates. The improvements in the physical properties of the films are attributed to the unique layered structure and chemically saturated bonds at the surface for both SnS and the graphene buffer layer. Consequently, the interaction between the SnS thin films and the graphene buffer layer is dominated by van der Waals force and structural defects at the interface, such as dangling bonds or dislocations, are substantially reduced.

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Fabrication of vacuum-evaporated SnS/CdS heterojunction for PV applications

Cited by 113 publications

References 17 publications

Optoelectronic properties of single-layer, double-layer, and bulk tin sulfide: A theoretical study

Optoelectronic properties of single-layer, double-layer, and bulk tin sulfide: A theoretical study

Band alignment of SnS/Zn(O,S) heterojunctions in SnS thin film solar cells

Molecular beam epitaxy growth of high quality p-doped SnS van der Waals epitaxy on a graphene buffer layer

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