An innovative approach for fabrication of Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers using solutions of elemental metal powders

Cooper, Carl; Arnou, Panagiota; Wright, Lewis; Ulicna, Sona; Walls, Michael; Malkov, Andrei; Bowers, Jake

An innovative approach for fabrication of Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers using solutions of elemental metal powders

journal contribution

posted on 2017-02-02, 16:07 authored by Carl Cooper, Panagiota Arnou, Lewis Wright, Sona Ulicna, Michael WallsMichael Walls, Andrei MalkovAndrei Malkov, Jake BowersJake Bowers

An innovative approach has been demonstrated for the deposition of Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe) absorber layers. Using a unique, safe solvent combination, moving away from hydrazine, elemental Cu, Zn, Sn and S/Se can be fully dissolved at ambient conditions, with the composition easily controlled. The preparation and the spray deposition of these solutions are performed in air, allowing a quick, easy and inexpensive process. Upon selenisation, large crystals are observed which are identified as the CZTSe kesterite phase using X-ray diffraction and Raman, the latter showing no distinctive signs of any binary or ternary secondary phases. Using this method, CZTSe absorber layers have been prepared for use in thin-film solar cells reaching efficiency of 3.2%. With further device optimisation, improved device performance will be achieved.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge Loughborough Materials Characterisation Centre (LMCC) for the use of their facilities for FEGSEM images, as well as the EPSRC PVTEAM project (EP/L017792/1) for funding this work.

History

School

Science

Department

Chemistry

Published in

Thin Solid Films

Citation

COOPER, C.S. ... et al., 2017. An innovative approach for fabrication of Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers using solutions of elemental metal powders. Thin Solid Films, 633 (July), pp. 151–155.

Publisher

Version

VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-12-16

Publication date

2017

Notes

Published by Elsevier. This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/