Recovery mechanisms in aged kesterite solar cells

Stephen Campbell, Martial Duchamp, Bethan Ford, Michael Jones, Linh Lan Nguyen, Matthew C. Naylor, Xinya Xu, Pietro Maiello, Guillaume Zoppi, Vincent Barrioz, Neil Beattie*, Yongtao Qu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
3 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

For successful long-term deployment and operation of kesterites Cu2ZnSn(SxSe1−x)4 (CZTSSe) as light absorber materials for photovoltaics, device stability and recovery in kesterite solar cells are investigated. A low temperature heat treatment is applied to overcome the poor charge extraction that developed in the natural aging process. It is suggested that defect states at aged CZTSSe/CdS heterojunctions were reduced while apparent doping density in the CZTSSe absorber increased due to Cd/Zn inter-diffusion at the heterojunction during the annealing process. In situ annealing experiments in a transmission electron microscope were used to investigate the elemental diffusion at the CZTSSe/CdS heterojunction. This study reveals the critical role of heat treatment to enhance the absorber/Mo back contact, improve the quality of the absorber/buffer heterojunction and recover the device performance in aged kesterite thin film solar cells.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5404-5414
Number of pages11
JournalACS Applied Energy Materials
Volume5
Issue number5
Early online date8 Mar 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 May 2022

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