Back Contact Engineering for Increased Performance in Kesterite Solar Cells

Antunez, Priscilla D.; Bishop, Douglas M.; Lee, Yun Seog; Gokmen, Tayfun; Gunawan, Oki; Gershon, Talia S.; Todorov, Teodor K.; Singh, Saurabh; Haight, Richard

doi:10.1002/aenm.201602585

Title: Back Contact Engineering for Increased Performance in Kesterite Solar Cells

Journal Article · Tue May 02 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Advanced Energy Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201602585· OSTI ID:1533076

Antunez, Priscilla D. ^[1]; Bishop, Douglas M. ^[1]; Lee, Yun Seog ^[1]; Gokmen, Tayfun ^[1]; Gunawan, Oki ^[1]; Gershon, Talia S. ^[1]; Todorov, Teodor K. ^[1]; Singh, Saurabh ^[1]; Haight, Richard ^[1]

IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY (United States). Thomas J. Watson Research Center

The thin‐film photovoltaic absorber Cu ₂ ZnSn(S,Se) ₄ (CZTSSe) holds considerable promise for large scale conversion of sunlight into electricity. CZTSSe is composed of Earth‐abundant elements that exhibit low‐toxicities, but improvements in device efficiency have been hampered by difficulties in increasing open circuit voltages ( V _OC ) due, at least in part, to disorder induced band tailing. We present a method to increase V _OC through direct modification of the back contact; our approach involves the separation of fully functioning devices from their Mo/glass substrate to reveal the back CZTSSe surface. Formation of a new back contact consisting of a thermally deposited high work function material (MoO ₃ ), together with a higly reflective (Au) capping layer, creates an electrostatic field that drives electrons to the front p‐n junction and leads to a decrease in electron‐hole recombination. Model simulations indicating an increase in V _OC with decreasing absorber thickness are borne out by experiments with devices of varying thicknesses (0.7–2.0 μm). We report V _OC increases of up to 49 mV for a 1 μm thick absorber, with even greater increases up to 61 mV when the back CZTSSe surface is etched with bromine‐methanol.

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Research Organization:: International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: EE0006334; DE‐EE0006334

OSTI ID:: 1533076

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1374481

Journal Information:: Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 15; ISSN 1614-6832

Publisher:: WileyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 47 works

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References (17)

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Cited By (9)

Chemical Dynamics of Back Contact with MoO 3 Interfacial Layer in Kesterite Solar Cells: Microstructure Evolution and Photovoltaic Performance Zhang, Afei; Zhou, Zhengji; Zhou, Wenhui Solar RRL, Vol. 3, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1002/solr.201900131	journal	July 2019
Efficient kesterite solar cells with high open-circuit voltage for applications in powering distributed devices Antunez, Priscilla D.; Bishop, Douglas M.; Luo, Yu Nature Energy, Vol. 2, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0028-5	journal	November 2017
Modifications of the CZTSe/Mo back-contact interface by plasma treatments Chen, Wenjian; Taskesen, Teoman; Nowak, David RSC Advances, Vol. 9, Issue 46 https://doi.org/10.1039/c9ra02847a	journal	January 2019
Diverse applications of MoO ₃ for high performance organic photovoltaics: fundamentals, processes and optimization strategies Gong, Yongshuai; Dong, Yiman; Zhao, Biao Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 8, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1039/c9ta12005j	journal	January 2020
Passivation and thickness control of highly efficient kesterite solar cells Antunez, Priscilla D.; Li, Siming; Bishop, Douglas M. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5037093	journal	July 2018
Open-circuit voltage deficit in Cu ₂ ZnSnS ₄ solar cells by interface bandgap narrowing Park, Ji-Sang; Kim, Sunghyun; Hood, Samantha N. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5063793	journal	November 2018
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Back and front contacts in kesterite solar cells: state-of-the-art and open questions Platzer-Björkman, Charlotte; Barreau, Nicolas; Bär, Marcus Journal of Physics: Energy, Vol. 1, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7655/ab3708	journal	October 2019
Modifications of the CZTSe/Mo back-contact interface by plasma treatments Chen, Wenjian; Taskesen, Teoman; Nowak, David Karlsruhe https://doi.org/10.5445/ir/1000098340	text	January 2019

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Title: Back Contact Engineering for Increased Performance in Kesterite Solar Cells

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