DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Non-monotonic effect of growth temperature on carrier collection in SnS solar cells

Abstract

We quantify the effects of growth temperature on material and device properties of thermally evaporated SnS thin-films and test structures. Grain size, Hall mobility, and majority-carrier concentration monotonically increase with growth temperature. Yet, the charge collection as measured by the long-wavelength contribution to short-circuit current exhibits a non-monotonic behavior: the collection decreases with increased growth temperature from 150 °C to 240 °C and then recovers at 285 °C. Fits to the experimental internal quantum efficiency using an opto-electronic model indicate that the non-monotonic behavior of charge-carrier collection can be explained by a transition from drift- to diffusion-assisted components of carrier collection. The results reflect a promising increase in the extracted minority-carrier diffusion length at the highest growth temperature of 285 °C. These findings demonstrate how coupled mechanisms can affect early stage device development, highlighting the critical role of direct materials property measurements and simulation.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [1]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office; National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1547010
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1226742
Grant/Contract Number:  
EE0005329
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Applied Physics Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 106; Journal Issue: 20; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY

Citation Formats

Chakraborty, R., Steinmann, V., Mangan, N. M., Brandt, R. E., Poindexter, J. R., Jaramillo, R., Mailoa, J. P., Hartman, K., Polizzotti, A., Yang, C., Gordon, R. G., and Buonassisi, T. Non-monotonic effect of growth temperature on carrier collection in SnS solar cells. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1063/1.4921326.
Chakraborty, R., Steinmann, V., Mangan, N. M., Brandt, R. E., Poindexter, J. R., Jaramillo, R., Mailoa, J. P., Hartman, K., Polizzotti, A., Yang, C., Gordon, R. G., & Buonassisi, T. Non-monotonic effect of growth temperature on carrier collection in SnS solar cells. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4921326
Chakraborty, R., Steinmann, V., Mangan, N. M., Brandt, R. E., Poindexter, J. R., Jaramillo, R., Mailoa, J. P., Hartman, K., Polizzotti, A., Yang, C., Gordon, R. G., and Buonassisi, T. Mon . "Non-monotonic effect of growth temperature on carrier collection in SnS solar cells". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4921326. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1547010.
@article{osti_1547010,
title = {Non-monotonic effect of growth temperature on carrier collection in SnS solar cells},
author = {Chakraborty, R. and Steinmann, V. and Mangan, N. M. and Brandt, R. E. and Poindexter, J. R. and Jaramillo, R. and Mailoa, J. P. and Hartman, K. and Polizzotti, A. and Yang, C. and Gordon, R. G. and Buonassisi, T.},
abstractNote = {We quantify the effects of growth temperature on material and device properties of thermally evaporated SnS thin-films and test structures. Grain size, Hall mobility, and majority-carrier concentration monotonically increase with growth temperature. Yet, the charge collection as measured by the long-wavelength contribution to short-circuit current exhibits a non-monotonic behavior: the collection decreases with increased growth temperature from 150 °C to 240 °C and then recovers at 285 °C. Fits to the experimental internal quantum efficiency using an opto-electronic model indicate that the non-monotonic behavior of charge-carrier collection can be explained by a transition from drift- to diffusion-assisted components of carrier collection. The results reflect a promising increase in the extracted minority-carrier diffusion length at the highest growth temperature of 285 °C. These findings demonstrate how coupled mechanisms can affect early stage device development, highlighting the critical role of direct materials property measurements and simulation.},
doi = {10.1063/1.4921326},
journal = {Applied Physics Letters},
number = 20,
volume = 106,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon May 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Mon May 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 16 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Efficiency limitations of thermally evaporated thin-film SnS solar cells
journal, July 2013


Band-structure, optical properties, and defect physics of the photovoltaic semiconductor SnS
journal, January 2012

  • Vidal, Julien; Lany, Stephan; d’Avezac, Mayeul
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3675880

The Hall effect in polycrystalline and powdered semiconductors
journal, November 1980


Thermally evaporated thin films of SnS for application in solar cell devices
journal, July 2009

  • Miles, Robert W.; Ogah, Ogah E.; Zoppi, Guillaume
  • Thin Solid Films, Vol. 517, Issue 17, p. 4702-4705
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.tsf.2009.03.003

Effect of substrate temperature and depostion profile on evaporated Cu(InGa)Se 2 films and devices
journal, February 2000


Modelling polycrystalline semiconductor solar cells
journal, February 2000


SnS thin-films by RF sputtering at room temperature
journal, August 2011

  • Hartman, Katy; Johnson, J. L.; Bertoni, Mariana I.
  • Thin Solid Films, Vol. 519, Issue 21, p. 7421-7424
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.tsf.2010.12.186

Microstructure dependent physical properties of evaporated tin sulfide films
journal, July 2006

  • Devika, M.; Ramakrishna Reddy, K. T.; Koteeswara Reddy, N.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 100, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.2216790

Photovoltaic properties of SnS based solar cells
journal, November 2006

  • Ramakrishna Reddy, K. T.; Koteswara Reddy, N.; Miles, R. W.
  • Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 90, Issue 18-19, p. 3041-3046
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2006.06.012

SnS thin film solar cells with Zn1−xMgxO buffer layers
journal, May 2013

  • Ikuno, Takashi; Suzuki, Ryo; Kitazumi, Kosuke
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 19
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4804603

Synthesis and Characterization of Nanocrystalline SnS Films Grown by Thermal Evaporation Technique
journal, January 2008

  • Devika, M.; Koteeswara Reddy, N.; Sreekantha Reddy, D.
  • Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Vol. 155, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1149/1.2819677

Co-optimization of SnS absorber and Zn(O,S) buffer materials for improved solar cells: SnS absorber and Zn(O,S) buffer materials for improved solar cells
journal, May 2014

  • Park, Helen Hejin; Heasley, Rachel; Sun, Leizhi
  • Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 23, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1002/pip.2504

Characterization of vacuum-evaporated tin sulfide film for solar cell materials
journal, September 1994

  • Noguchi, Hidenori; Setiyadi, Agus; Tanamura, Hiromasa
  • Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 35, p. 325-331
  • DOI: 10.1016/0927-0248(94)90158-9

Overcoming Efficiency Limitations of SnS-Based Solar Cells
journal, June 2014

  • Sinsermsuksakul, Prasert; Sun, Leizhi; Lee, Sang Woon
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 15
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201400496

Single Phase, Large Grain, p-Conductivity-type SnS Layers Produced using the Thermal Evaporation Method
journal, January 2012


Electronic processes at grain boundaries in polycrystalline semiconductors under optical illumination
journal, April 1977


Atomic Layer Deposition of Tin Monosulfide Thin Films
journal, September 2011

  • Sinsermsuksakul, Prasert; Heo, Jaeyeong; Noh, Wontae
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 6, p. 1116-1125
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201100330

Enhancing the efficiency of SnS solar cells via band-offset engineering with a zinc oxysulfide buffer layer
journal, February 2013

  • Sinsermsuksakul, Prasert; Hartman, Katy; Bok Kim, Sang
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4789855

What limits the efficiency of chalcopyrite solar cells?
journal, June 2011


High efficiency CSS CdTe solar cells
journal, February 2000


Optical and photoconductive properties of SnS thin films prepared by electron beam evaporation
journal, November 2003


3.88% Efficient Tin Sulfide Solar Cells using Congruent Thermal Evaporation
journal, August 2014

  • Steinmann, Vera; Jaramillo, R.; Hartman, Katy
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 44
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201402219

Making Record-efficiency SnS Solar Cells by Thermal Evaporation and Atomic Layer Deposition
journal, January 2015

  • Jaramillo, Rafael; Steinmann, Vera; Yang, Chuanxi
  • Journal of Visualized Experiments, Issue 99
  • DOI: 10.3791/52705

Influence of substrate temperature on properties of tin sulfide thin films
conference, February 2008

  • Guo, Yuying; Shi, Weimin; Zhang, Yu
  • Sixth International Conference on Thin Film Physics and Applications, SPIE Proceedings
  • DOI: 10.1117/12.792635

Works referencing / citing this record:

Transient terahertz photoconductivity measurements of minority-carrier lifetime in tin sulfide thin films: Advanced metrology for an early stage photovoltaic material
journal, January 2016

  • Jaramillo, R.; Sher, Meng-Ju; Ofori-Okai, Benjamin K.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 119, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4940157

The impact of sodium contamination in tin sulfide thin-film solar cells
journal, February 2016

  • Steinmann, Vera; Brandt, Riley E.; Chakraborty, Rupak
  • APL Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4941713

Influences of vacancy and doping on electronic and magnetic properties of monolayer SnS
journal, August 2018

  • Ullah, Hamid; Noor-A-Alam, Mohammad; Kim, Hye Jung
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5022151