Effects of thermochemical treatment on CuSbS2 photovoltaic absorber quality and solar cell reproducibility

de Souza Lucas, Francisco Willian; Welch, Adam W.; Baranowski, Lauryn L.; Dippo, Patricia C.; Hempel, Hannes; Unold, Thomas; Eichberger, Rainer; Blank, Beatrix; Rau, Uwe; Mascaro, Lucia H.; Zakutayev, Andriy

doi:10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b04206

Title: Effects of thermochemical treatment on CuSbS₂ photovoltaic absorber quality and solar cell reproducibility

Journal Article · Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Journal of Physical Chemistry. C

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b04206· OSTI ID:1319282

de Souza Lucas, Francisco Willian ^[1]; Welch, Adam W. ^[2]; Baranowski, Lauryn L. ^[2]; Dippo, Patricia C. ^[3]; Hempel, Hannes ^[4]; Unold, Thomas ^[4]; Eichberger, Rainer ^[4]; Blank, Beatrix ^[5]; Rau, Uwe ^[5]; Mascaro, Lucia H. ^[6]; Zakutayev, Andriy ^[3]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Federal Univ. of Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos (Brazil)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin fur Materialien und Energie GmbH, Berlin (Germany)
Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Juelich (Germany)
Federal Univ. of Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos (Brazil)

CuSbS₂ is a promising nontoxic and earth-abundant photovoltaic absorber that is chemically simpler than the widely studied Cu₂ZnSnS₄. However, CuSbS₂ photovoltaic (PV) devices currently have relatively low efficiency and poor reproducibility, often due to suboptimal material quality and insufficient optoelectronic properties. To address these issues, here we develop a thermochemical treatment (TT) for CuSbS₂ thin films, which consists of annealing in Sb₂S₃ vapor followed by a selective KOH surface chemical etch. The annealed CuSbS₂ films show improved structural quality and optoelectronic properties, such as stronger band-edge photoluminescence and longer photoexcited carrier lifetime. These improvements also lead to more reproducible CuSbS₂ PV devices, with performance currently limited by a large cliff-type interface band offset with CdS contact. Altogether, these results point to the potential avenues to further increase the performance of CuSbS₂ thin film solar cell, and the findings can be transferred to other thin film photovoltaic technologies.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

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

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1319282

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-66168

Journal Information:: Journal of Physical Chemistry. C, Vol. 120, Issue 33; ISSN 1932-7447

Publisher:: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 58 works

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