Numerical Simulation and Performance Evaluation of Highly Efficient Sb₂Se₃ Solar Cell with Tin Sulfide as Hole Transport Layer

Abstract

This work reports a numerical investigation on the performance of Sb2Se3‐based thin‐film heterojunction solar cell using the solar cell capacitance simulator in 1D (SCAPS‐1D) program. Herein, inorganic tin sulfide (SnS) is introduced as a new hole transport material into the Sb2Se3 solar cell. The effects of several parameters such as thickness, doping, electron affinity, defect density, temperature, and resistances on the cell performances are analyzed. The proposed novel solar configuration that consists of Al/F:SnO2 (FTO)/CdS/Sb2Se3/SnS/Mo reveals the enhanced photovoltaic performances by means of reducing carrier recombination loss at back surface. At an optimized Sb2Se3 thickness of 1.0 μm, the efficiency is boosted from 24.01% to 29.89% by incorporating an ultrathin 0.05 μm SnS hole transport layer (HTL) into the Sb2Se3 solar cell. The performances of the proposed device are also evaluated by varying defects at CdS/Sb2Se3 and Sb2Se3/SnS interfaces. Moreover, it is found that electron affinity larger than 3.5 eV of HTL as well as back contact metal work function ≥4.9 eV should be considered to attain better performance. The simulated results lead to suggest that introducing the SnS material as a potential HTL candidate would be useful to develop low‐cost and highly efficient thin‐film solar cells.

Performance evaluation of WS2 as buffer and Sb2S3 as hole transport layer in CZTS solar cell by numerical simulation

“…The enhancement in V oc with decreasing the CZTS thickness may be owing to the reduction of back surface carrier recombination loss in the CZTS TFSC with HTL. Comparable V oc outcomes with decreasing the absorber thickness lower than 1.0 μm are also realized in the former investigations on TFSCs 55,68,73,85,92 . The output characteristics of proposed solar cell with respect to increasing doping density from 10 12 to 10 21 cm −3 is illustrated in Figure 6B.…”

“…The minority carrier reduction owing to high recombination at the Ni/CZTS interface may result in the deficient performance of the standard CZTS TFSC. A strong built‐in potential induced at the p + ‐type HTL/p‐type absorber high‐low junction inhibits the minority electron recombination loss at the back surface, thereby enhancing the PV performances outstandingly 55,61,68,71,72,85,86 …”

“…The simulation parameters for various layers along the interface defects are shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The parameters are carefully chosen based on the existing theoretical and experimental measurements 20,37,40,51,55,61,65‐71 . At room temperature, the thermal velocity of both electron and hole is anticipated to be 10 7 cm/s 72‐74 .…”

“…The parameters are carefully chosen based on the existing theoretical and experimental measurements. 20,37,40,51,55,61,[65][66][67][68][69][70][71] At room temperature, the thermal velocity of both electron and hole is anticipated to be 10 7 cm/s. [72][73][74] The absorption coefficient of each layer is managed from the corresponding equation stated as α = A α (hν−E g ) 1/2 , herein A α is chosen to has the value of 10 5 .…”

SnTe as a BSF enhances the performance of Sb2Se3 based solar cell: A numerical approach

“…Furthermore, Sunny et al. reported a PCE of 29.89% by incorporating a 0.05 μm thin SnS as HTL in Al/F:SnO 2 (FTO)/CdS/Sb 2 Se 3 /SnS/Mo [ 12 ]. Cadmium sulfide (CdS) with a bandgap of 2.4 eV is used as a buffer layer to allow incoming photons to penetrate the absorber layer with the least absorption loss [ 13 ].…”