Transient terahertz photoconductivity measurements of minority-carrier lifetime in tin sulfide thin films: Advanced metrology for an early stage photovoltaic material

Jaramillo, R.; Sher, Meng-Ju; Ofori-Okai, Benjamin K.; Steinmann, V.; Yang, Chuanxi; Hartman, Katy; Nelson, Keith A.; Lindenberg, Aaron M.; Gordon, Roy G.; Buonassisi, T.

doi:10.1063/1.4940157

Title: Transient terahertz photoconductivity measurements of minority-carrier lifetime in tin sulfide thin films: Advanced metrology for an early stage photovoltaic material

Journal Article · Thu Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4940157· OSTI ID:1547035

Jaramillo, R. ^[1]; Sher, Meng-Ju ^[2];

^[1]; Steinmann, V. ^[1]; Yang, Chuanxi ^[3]; Hartman, Katy ^[1]; Nelson, Keith A. ^[1]; Lindenberg, Aaron M. ^[4]; Gordon, Roy G. ^[3]; Buonassisi, T. ^[1]

Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Materials research with a focus on enhancing the minority-carrier lifetime of the light-absorbing semiconductor is crucial to advancing solar energy technology for both early stage and mature material platforms alike. Tin sulfide (SnS) is an absorber material with several clear advantages for manufacturing and deployment, but the record power conversion efficiency remains below 5%. We report measurements of bulk and interface minority-carrier recombination rates in SnS thin films using optical-pump, terahertz-probe transient photoconductivity (TPC) measurements. Post-growth thermal annealing in H₂S gas increases the minority-carrier lifetime, and oxidation of the surface reduces the surface recombination velocity. However, the minority-carrier lifetime remains below 100 ps for all tested combinations of growth technique and post-growth processing. Vast improvement in SnS solar cell performance will hinge on finding and mitigating as-yet-unknown recombination-active defects. We describe in detail our methodology for TPC experiments, and we share our data analysis routines in the form freely available software.

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Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: EE0005329; FG02-00ER15087

OSTI ID:: 1547035

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1235491

Journal Information:: Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 119, Issue 3; ISSN 0021-8979

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 39 works

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