Recovery mechanisms in aged kesterite solar cells

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

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
51 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

Keywords

  • SCAPS
  • elemental diffusion
  • heat treatment
  • in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
  • kesterite
  • photovoltaics

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