Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications

Cu2ZnSnS4-xSex (CZTSSe) based kesterite solar cells, comprise of abundantly available and environmental benign elements, which have drawn widespread attention as they are excellent candidatesfor thin film solar cells. In addition, other advantageous qualities of CZTSSe that makes it suitable for thi...

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Main Author: Zeng, Xin
Other Authors: Subodh Gautam Mhaisalkar
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/65938
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author Zeng, Xin
author2 Subodh Gautam Mhaisalkar
author_facet Subodh Gautam Mhaisalkar
Zeng, Xin
author_sort Zeng, Xin
collection NTU
description Cu2ZnSnS4-xSex (CZTSSe) based kesterite solar cells, comprise of abundantly available and environmental benign elements, which have drawn widespread attention as they are excellent candidatesfor thin film solar cells. In addition, other advantageous qualities of CZTSSe that makes it suitable for thin film applications include its high absorption coefficient in the visible wavelength range, intrinsic ptype conductivity and a direct band gap. The technologies available to fabricate high quality CZTSSe absorbers are still in their infancy, with the solution based techniques requiring either a highly toxic and dangerous solvent such as hydrazine, or an organic solvent such as methanol. Thus, an environmentally green and cost effective method is in current high demand. In this work, an aqueous-based chemical spray pyrolysis technique was used to deposit a uniform CZTS layer on Mo coated glass. The film was further processed in a high temperature selenization furnace to obtain a highly crystalline CZTSSe absorber. Using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy, no detectable secondary phase was observed from the CZTSSe absorbers. A uniform elemental distribution was suggested from SIMS depth profiling, except for slightly increased concentrations of Zn and S close to the Mo contact layer. The S/Se ratio can be tuned by applying different amounts of Se in the selenization process, which resulted in similar solar cell conversion efficiencies above 5%. The highest efficiency obtained after process optimization was 7.5%, which to the best of our knowledge, is the highest efficiency obtained for a kesterite containing solar cell fabricated by an aqueous-based solution method.
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spelling ntu-10356/659382023-03-04T16:36:57Z Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications Zeng, Xin Subodh Gautam Mhaisalkar Chen Xiaodong School of Materials Science & Engineering DRNTU::Engineering::Materials Cu2ZnSnS4-xSex (CZTSSe) based kesterite solar cells, comprise of abundantly available and environmental benign elements, which have drawn widespread attention as they are excellent candidatesfor thin film solar cells. In addition, other advantageous qualities of CZTSSe that makes it suitable for thin film applications include its high absorption coefficient in the visible wavelength range, intrinsic ptype conductivity and a direct band gap. The technologies available to fabricate high quality CZTSSe absorbers are still in their infancy, with the solution based techniques requiring either a highly toxic and dangerous solvent such as hydrazine, or an organic solvent such as methanol. Thus, an environmentally green and cost effective method is in current high demand. In this work, an aqueous-based chemical spray pyrolysis technique was used to deposit a uniform CZTS layer on Mo coated glass. The film was further processed in a high temperature selenization furnace to obtain a highly crystalline CZTSSe absorber. Using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy, no detectable secondary phase was observed from the CZTSSe absorbers. A uniform elemental distribution was suggested from SIMS depth profiling, except for slightly increased concentrations of Zn and S close to the Mo contact layer. The S/Se ratio can be tuned by applying different amounts of Se in the selenization process, which resulted in similar solar cell conversion efficiencies above 5%. The highest efficiency obtained after process optimization was 7.5%, which to the best of our knowledge, is the highest efficiency obtained for a kesterite containing solar cell fabricated by an aqueous-based solution method. DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (MSE) 2016-02-01T02:06:05Z 2016-02-01T02:06:05Z 2016 Thesis Zeng, X. (2016). Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/65938 10.32657/10356/65938 en 136 p. application/pdf
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering::Materials
Zeng, Xin
Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title_full Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title_fullStr Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title_full_unstemmed Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title_short Investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
title_sort investigation on carrier recombination and energetics of kesterite materials for photovoltaic applications
topic DRNTU::Engineering::Materials
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/65938
work_keys_str_mv AT zengxin investigationoncarrierrecombinationandenergeticsofkesteritematerialsforphotovoltaicapplications