Highly reproducible planar Sb₂S₃-sensitized solar cells based on atomic layer deposition

Abstract

A high-quality Sb₂S₃ thin-absorber with controllable thickness was reproducibly formed by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. Compared with conventional chemical bath deposition (CBD), the Sb₂S₃ absorber deposited by ALD did not contain oxide or oxygen impurities and showed a very uniform thickness of Sb₂S₃ absorbers formed on a rough surface of dense blocking TiO₂/F-doped SnOv (bl-TiO₂/FTO) substrate. The planar ALD-Sb₂S₃ solar cells comprised of Au/Poly-3-hexylthiophene/ALD-Sb₂S₃/bl-TiO₂/FTO showed significantly improved power conversion efficiency of 5.77% at 1 sun condition and narrow efficiency deviation, whereas the planar CBD-Sb₂S₃ solar cells exhibited 2.17% power conversion efficiency. The high efficiency and good reproducibility of ALD-Sb₂S₃ solar cell devices is attributed to reduced backward recombination because of the inhibition of oxide defects within ALD-Sb₂S₃ absorber and the conformal deposition of very uniform Sb₂S₃ absorbers on the blocking TiO₂ surface by ALD process.

Electrodeposition and ab Initio Studies of Metastable Orthorhombic Bi2Se3: A Novel Semiconductor with Bandgap for Photovoltaic Applications

“…A recent report indicates that this 1-D like structure may provide for interfaces free of dangling bonds and defects 1,10 , resulting in solar cells with efficiencies of about 5 to 6% 5,9 . Additional attractive features of these chalcogenides are (i) the bandgap, usually reported to be between 1.3 and 1.7 eV [10][11][12][13] , i.e. in the optimal range to maximize the Shockley-Queisser limit of solar conversion efficiency 14 , and (ii) the high (>10 5 cm -1 ) optical absorption coefficient, minimizing the absorber layer thickness.…”

Spin-coated planar Sb2S3 hybrid solar cells approaching 5% efficiency

“…Solar cells with extremely thin absorber architecture [1–6 29] reach the highest efficiencies. Planar devices have been produced via various methods such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) [32], chemical bath deposition (CBD) [27] and (rapid) thermal evaporation (R)TE [33–35]. As the latest development, spin-coated planar solar cells [31,36–38] reached an efficiencies >4%.…”

“…Typically Sb 2 S 3 is fabricated via chemical bath deposition (CBD) [2,39–41] with the drawback of a complex growth mechanism that includes heterogeneous nucleation and exponential growth which requires the precise control of processing conditions and eventually limits the process’ reproducibility [29,32]. During chemical reactions in the water bath, various antimony oxides, hydroxides and sulfates form [6,42–44] which could be detrimental to device performance.…”

“…A metal-organic complex is formed in solution which is then spin-coated and afterwards thermally decomposed. Just like for CBD [2,41] or ALD [22,32] the resulting amorphous film needs to be annealed at elevated temperatures to obtain crystalline Sb 2 S 3 . Choi and Il Seok reported an antimony–thiourea (Sb–TU) complex and demonstrated efficiencies above 5% in an ETA configuration with poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4 H -cyclopenta[2,1-b;3,4-b’]-dithiophene)- alt -4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] PCPDTBT as the hole transport material and efficiencies above 6% when an organic bulk heterojunction was used instead of the pure polymer [29].…”

Stability Improvement of Photovoltaic Performance in Antimony Sulfide-Based Hybrid Solar Cells

“…11 Sb 2 S 3 has been prepared by chemical bath deposition, [1][2][3][4] atomic layer deposition, 12 complexdecomposition method, 13 and so on and applied as the thin film for solar cell, which has been attained the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.5%. 4 Although Sb 2 S 3 -based solar cell seems to be stable in air, 1,14 stability test under the accelerated conditions has not yet been reported.…”