Phase-transition-driven growth of compound semiconductor crystals from ordered metastable nanorods

Mainz, Roland; Singh, Ajay; Levcenko, S.; Klaus, Manuela; Genzel, Christoph; Ryan, Kevin M.; Unold, Thomas

doi:10.1038/ncomms4133

Cited by 101 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The wurtzitic form of CZTS has previously been seen for nanoparticles and thin films [37,59]. The diffraction patterns of the hexagonal and orthorhombic phases are very similar.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 52%

The synthesis and characterization of Cu2ZnSnS4 thin films from melt reactions using xanthate precursors

et al. 2017

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“…The wurtzitic form of CZTS has previously been seen for nanoparticles and thin films [37,59]. The diffraction patterns of the hexagonal and orthorhombic phases are very similar.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 52%

The synthesis and characterization of Cu2ZnSnS4 thin films from melt reactions using xanthate precursors

et al. 2017

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“…Besides grain boundary energy and strain energy, 42 the defect energies may act as additional driving force for the recrystallization, similar to a phase-transition-driven grain growth. 3 …”

Section: View Article Onlinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 A general challenge for low-temperature synthesis, however, is the possible formation of structural disorders induced by growth accidents 2 a Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Hahn-Meitner-Platz or incomplete phase transitions, 3 which may deteriorate the device performance and cancel out the aforementioned advantages. 4,5 In many cases these problems can be surpassed by a smart process design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annihilation of structural defects in chalcogenide absorber films for high-efficiency solar cells

Mainz

Sanli

Stange

et al. 2016

Energy Environ. Sci.

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aIn polycrystalline semiconductor absorbers for thin-film solar cells, structural defects may enhance electron-hole recombination and hence lower the resulting energy conversion efficiency. To be able to efficiently design and optimize fabrication processes that result in high-quality materials, knowledge of the nature of structural defects as well as their formation and annihilation during film growth is essential. Here we show that in co-evaporated Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 absorber films the density of defects is strongly influenced by the reaction path and substrate temperature during film growth. A combination of high-resolution electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and X-ray diffraction shows that Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 absorber films deposited at low temperature without a Cu-rich stage suffer from a high density of -partially electronically active -planar defects in the {112} planes. Real-time X-ray diffraction Broader contextThe development of thin-film solar cells has been a success story in recent years in terms of record efficiencies in the lab. Single junction solar cells based on compound semiconductor films have reached higher energy-conversion efficiencies than polycrystalline silicon. Despite this success and the prospects of novel applications such as flexible, lightweight solar panels, the market share of thin-film solar modules is stagnating. A major problem of compound thin-film solar cells, such as Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 , is the large gap between lab efficiencies and commercial module efficiencies. A large process parameter space makes trial-and-error optimization a time-consuming and expensive task. Therefore, understanding the underlying atomic-scale physics and chemistry is essential to identify the potential origins of efficiency losses in the transfer from lab-to large-scale fabrication. Even though Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 has been investigated for several decades, there is still a lack of fundamental knowledge of the quality-determining mechanisms during film growth. In this contribution we present results from an international collaboration that provides direct insight into defect formation and annihilation during the fabrication of Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 films. Consequences for process optimization and design are proposed. The presented approach can also be applied to understand other thin-film fabrication processes.

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“…The absorption coefficient of CZTS is greater than 10 4 / cm and therefore only a thin layer (1-2 lm) can absorb most of the incident photons (Zhao and Qiao et al 2014;Mainz et al 2014;Fan 2014;Tanaka et al 2007;Chen et al 2009;Yu et al 2012). It is known that nanocone structure is an optimal shape for enhancing the light absorption (Wang and Leu 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green synthesis of wurtzite copper zinc tin sulfide nanocones for improved solar photovoltaic utilization

et al. 2014

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Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 (CZTS) is considered to be one of the most promising light absorbing materials for low-cost and high-efficiency thin-film solar cells. It is composed of earth abundant, non-toxic elements. In the present study, wurtzite CZTS nanocone has been synthesized by a green chemistry route. The nanocones have been characterized for its optical, structural and microstructural properties using UV-Vis spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Optical absorption result shows a band gap of 1.42 eV. XRD and Raman results show wurtzite structure and TEM studies reveal the nanocone structure of the grown material. Growing vertically aligned nanocone structure having smaller diameter shall help in enhancing the light absorption in broader range which shall enhance the efficiency of solar cell. This study is a step in this direction.

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Phase-transition-driven growth of compound semiconductor crystals from ordered metastable nanorods

Cited by 101 publications

References 56 publications

The synthesis and characterization of Cu2ZnSnS4 thin films from melt reactions using xanthate precursors

The synthesis and characterization of Cu2ZnSnS4 thin films from melt reactions using xanthate precursors

Annihilation of structural defects in chalcogenide absorber films for high-efficiency solar cells

Green synthesis of wurtzite copper zinc tin sulfide nanocones for improved solar photovoltaic utilization

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