Recent Development in Earth-Abundant Kesterite Materials and Their Applications

Abstract

Kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) has attracted attention as an earth-abundant alternative to commercially successful CIGS solar cells. CZTS exhibits decent optoelectrical properties while having excellent stability on top of being an earth-abundant, low-cost and non-toxic material. Therefore, in recent years, there has been a significant research effort to develop CZTS-based devices. The efficiency of CZTS solar cells reached 12.6% in 2013, and this was a remarkable achievement at the time. However, the efficiency of these devices has been stagnant since then while emerging technologies, most notably perovskite solar cells, keep breaking record after record. Currently, CZTS research focuses on discovering the secrets of material properties that hinder the efficiency of CZTS solar cells while branching out to develop alternative applications for this material. In this review, we summarize the interesting properties of CZTS as well as its promising applications, which include thin-film solar cells, charge-transfer layers in perovskite solar cells, and photoelectrochemical water splitting while briefly commenting on its other possible applications.

Atomic Scale Structure of (Ag,Cu)2ZnSnSe4 and Cu2Zn(Sn,Ge)Se4 Kesterite Thin Films

“…The quaternary compounds Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 and Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 as well as some of their derivatives are well researched semiconductors (Giraldo et al, 2019). They can be used in multiple fields such as water splitting, charge transfer layers, thermoelectrics, and most prominently as absorbers in thin film solar cells (Nazligul et al, 2020). Their most mentioned advantages are the earth abundant, non-toxic and low cost elements, that the material is made of.…”

“…The most prominent symptom of complications is that the conversion efficiency has not improved above the 12.6% record from 2013 (Wang et al, 2013;Son et al, 2019;Wong et al, 2019), while the theoretical limit is around 30% (Shockley and Queisser, 1961). In search of the cause, many studies have pointed out the low open-circuit voltage (V oc ) as a main culprit (Giraldo et al, 2019;Nazligul et al, 2020). This V oc deficit and the low conversion efficiency may be directly connected to intrinsic properties of the bulk material.…”

“…Parallels with Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se) 2 solar cell research have inspired a wide use of alloying in the kesterite research. Several elements have been used and tested in order to completely avoid, or at least reduce problems and defects connected to a specific element in the original Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 and Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 compounds (Giraldo et al, 2019;Nazligul et al, 2020).…”

Cu2ZnSnS4, a Fascinating Counter Electrode for TiO2‐Free Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Despite that, the morphology of CZTS plays a crucial role to control its performance for a DSSC device. Variation of CZTS nanostructures can further improve the PCE [30,31] . In this work, we find more inexpensive CZTS can be a suitable alternative to costly Pt, which has been developed starting from CZTS thin film preparation, its various physicochemical characteristics and finally explored as a non‐Pt CEs for DSSCs.…”

Effect of Different Selenium Precursors on Structural Characteristics and Chemical Composition of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Nanocrystals

“…The modern absorbers of solar cells (SC) contain multicomponent compounds such as Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 , Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 and Cu 2 ZnSn(S x Se 1-x ) 4 [33][34][35][36][37]. The compounds possess close to optimal energy bandgap (E g ), high light absorption coe cient (~ 10 5 cm -1 ), long lifetime, and high mobility of charge carriers [38].…”