Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV16)
Publication date: 28th March 2016
Photovoltaics has been established as one of the best alternatives for usual fossil fuels as method to obtain energy. Kesterites (Copper-Zinc-Tin-Sulfide, CZTS) solar cells have shown excellent promising photovoltaic properties that could place them as a good candidate to lead the change to renewable energy production. Between these properties we can found its earth-abundant materials composition, high extinction coefficient, small band gap and high photo-stability. However, even though efficiencies over 10%[1] have been obtained, their preparation has been proved to be very difficult as they present a complex system, with 4 different materials in its structure. The presence of these four materials implies a high control of the stoichiometry and its synthesis conditions due to its narrow single phase region.
Trying to solve this aspect another earth abundant materials sulfides[2] have attracted the attention for their promising optoelectronic characteristics and because their simple synthesis and processing compared to the usual CZTS.
In this work, Copper-Bismuth-Sulfide (CBS) and Tin (II) Sulfide (SnS) are going to be shown as examples of these more simple sulfide solution-processed alternatives to CZTS. Even though they are simpler they maintain the previously cited properties to become promising materials for solar cells.
A spectroscopic study, including Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (TAS), has been performed with these different materials in order to study the different charge transfer process that will occur in solar cells that include these materials. Identifying the different processes that occur in the solar cell system is possible to identify the processes that decrease the efficiency of the photovoltaic device. With this technique has been proved the charge hole transfer from the HTM to the sulfide, proving that voltage of the cells using sulfides can be improved using a hybrid solar cell architecture instead of the one used in the literature[3], where no selective contacts are used.
In addition, working solar cells with the base structure FTO/ETL/Sulfide/HTM/Ag have been fabricated obtaining efficiencies over 1%. Moreover, following the assumptions made in the previously spectroscopic mentioned, several modifications in the device fabrication have been performed to increase the efficiency of the final device.
[1]- Verlinden P, Zhang Y, Feng Z., 6th World Conf. on PV Energy Conversion, Kyoto, November 2014.
[2] - T. Rath, L. Gury, I. Sánchez-Molina, L. Martínez and S. A. Haque, Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 10198-10201
[3] - Sinsermsuksakul, P., Sun, L., Lee, S. W., Park, H. H., Kim, S. B., Yang, C., Gordon, R. G. Adv. Energy Mater., 2014. 4: 1400496
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