Iron pyrite nanocrystal film serves as a copper-free back contact for polycrystalline CdTe thin film solar cells

Abstract

We report the application of thin film nanocrystalline (NC) FeS 2 as the copper-free back contact for CdTe solar cells. The FeS 2 -NC layer is prepared from solution directly on the CdTe surface using drop-casting coupled with a hydrazine treatment at ambient temperature and pressure, and requires no thermal treatment. Copper-free solar cells based on the CdS/CdTe/FeS 2 -NC/Au architecture exhibit device efficiencies >90% that of a standard Cu/Au back contact devices. The FeS 2 -NC back contact solar cells show good thermal stability under initial tests. Devices prepared with untreated FeS 2 -NC back contacts display a strong "S-kink" behavior which we correlate with a high hole-transport barrier arising from inter-NC organic surfactant molecules.

Colloidal synthesis of biocompatible iron disulphide nanocrystals

“…Metal sulphide nanostructures have garnered much interest in the areas of energy conversion and storage due to their optimal optoelectronic properties [1,2]. Two of these chalcogenides, cadmium (CdS) and lead sulphides (PbS) have been widely studied [1,3,4], but could cause environmental damage.…”

“…Two of these chalcogenides, cadmium (CdS) and lead sulphides (PbS) have been widely studied [1,3,4], but could cause environmental damage. At present, non-toxic metal sulphides, such as copper sulphide, zinc sulphide and iron sulphide, are considered promising semiconductors owing do their optoelectronic properties [2,5,6]. Iron sulphide presents different crystalline phases such as troilite, marcasite, pyrrohotite and pyrite [7,8].…”

The Back Contact in CDTE/CDS Thin Film Solar Cells

“…However, this contact works well if MoO3 exhibits the right stoichiometry, which is not so simple to be obtained. Another promising material to be used as a Cu-free back contact is iron pyrite [4] but the obtained results are not definitive. In the past, we reported the preparation of a copper-free back-contact to CdTe by using a low resistivity p-type material such as Sb2Te3 [5] covered by molybdenum.…”

Dissolution kinetics of tellurium from gold concentrate during alkaline sulphide leaching

“…Lead and bismuth tellurides are often used to make photosensitive materials (Tsiulyanu et al, 2005). The cadmium telluride photovoltaic panel is one of the most common commercially available solar panels (Bhandari et al, 2015;Fadaam et al, 2019). At present the market demand for tellurium continues to increase year by year (Candelise et al, 2012;Zhong et al, 2018), but annual tellurium production is far behind the market demand (Yu et al, 2018).…”