CZTS thin film solar cells on flexible Molybdenum foil by electrodeposition-annealing route
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
CZTS thin film solar cells on flexible Molybdenum foil by electrodeposition‑annealing route M. I. Khalil1 · R. Bernasconi1 · A. Lucotti2 · A. Le Donne3 · R. A. Mereu3 · S. Binetti3 · J. L. Hart4 · M. L. Taheri5 · L. Nobili1 · L. Magagnin1 Received: 12 May 2020 / Accepted: 10 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Earth-abundant and non-toxic Kesterite-based Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin film solar cells are successfully fabricated on flexible Molybdenum (Mo) foil substrates by an electrodeposition-annealing route. A well-adherent, densely packed, homogeneous, compact, and mirror-like CZT precursor is initially produced through electrodeposition by using a rotating working electrode. Subsequently, the co-electrodeposited CuZnSn (CZT) precursor is sulfurized in quartz tube furnace at 550 °C for 2 h in N 2 atmosphere with the presence of elemental sulfur in order to form CZTS. Different characterization techniques like XRD, SEM, HR-TEM, Raman, and Photoluminescence demonstrate that almost phase-pure CZTS formed after sulfurization. A flexible Al/Al-ZnO/i-ZnO/CdS/CZTS/Mo foil solar cell is produced, where CdS is deposited by chemical bath deposition and transparent conducting oxide (TCO) is deposited by DC sputtering. The CZTS solar device shows a 0.55% power conversion efficiency on flexible Mo foil substrate and it constitutes the first prototype of this kind of solar cell produced by electrodeposition-annealing route without any surface modification of the Mo substrate. Graphic abstract
Keywords CZTS · Flexible · Molybdenum · Electrodeposition · Sulfurization · Rotating electrode Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-020-01494-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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1 Introduction In order to make a real impact on worldwide energy demand (at the TW level), solar materials should be cheap, non-toxic, and earth-abundant, and they should provide high functional lifetime with high power conversion efficiency (PCE). Over the last few decades, thin film technologies based on direct band gap metal chalcogenides have shown the potential to produce photovoltaic (PV) cells with low cost along with easy fabrication routes. Kesterites-based chalcogenides like CZTS (Cu2ZnSnS4), CZTSe (Cu2ZnSnSe4), and mixed sulfo-selenide CZTSSe (Cu2ZnSn(S, Se)4) are attracting much attention nowadays from researchers as promising alternatives to existing commercialized CIGS (Cu(In, Ga)Se2) and CdTe absorber layers. This is due to the low cost of their mass production, as constituent elements in Kesterites are non-toxic and abundant in the earth’s crust compared to CIGS and CdTe. Moreover, they have suitable direct band gap near to 1.45 eV (CZTS), around 1 eV (CZTSe), and 1.0–1.5 eV (CZTSSe, depending on the S/(S + Se) ratio) together with high absorption coefficient (> 1 × 104 cm−1), which make them ideal among all the sec
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