Synthesis and performance optimisation of spray coated Cu2ZnSnS4 absorbing layers from single-source xanthate precursors

Bishop, M.T., Zhang, L., Dolganov, A., Chen, G.Z., Peng, C. and Hu, D. (2019) Synthesis and performance optimisation of spray coated Cu2ZnSnS4 absorbing layers from single-source xanthate precursors. Thin Solid Films, 690 . p. 137530. ISSN 0040-6090

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Abstract

Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) is a promising non-toxic and cheap absorber layer for the use in photovoltaic cells. In this work copper, zinc and tin xanthates were synthesised and deposited using a single-source spray coating technique to produce CZTS thin films, to investigate how the ratio of these precursors can alter the performance of the device. It was determined that using a tin rich xanthate precursor mix resulted in the thin film with the chemical composition closest to CZTS, with few contaminating phases (i.e. Cu2-xS, Cu2SnS3 and ZnS). To explain this observation, isothermal thermal gravimetric analysis was used to determine rate constants for the decomposition of these xanthate precursors. The rate constants of copper xanthate and zinc xanthate align very well (1.26 and 1.24 s−1 respectively). However, the rate constant for tin xanthate differs significantly (1.09 s−1). Therefore, to form the appropriate ratio in the final product, a tin rich precursor mixture is required. This tin rich xanthate sample was shown to have a band gap of 1.73 eV and a power conversion efficiency of 0.15%.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Copper zinc tin sulfide; Xanthate; Spray deposition;Thin film solar cells
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham Ningbo China > Faculty of Science and Engineering > Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2019.137530
Depositing User: Yu, Tiffany
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2019 01:16
Last Modified: 24 Sep 2019 01:16
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/59127

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