Phase-pure evaporation of tin (II) sulfide for solar cell applications

Author

Chakraborty, Rupak ; Steinmann, Volker ; Jaramillo, R. ; Hartman, Katy ; Brandt, Riley E. ; Park, Hyun Ho ; Poindexter, Jeremy ; Yun Seog Lee ; Gordon, Roy G. ; Buonassisi, Tonio

Author_Institution

Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

8-13 June 2014

Firstpage

2304

Lastpage

2306

Abstract

Tin (II) sulfide is a promising earth-abundant thin-film solar absorber material due to its strong absorption and near-optimal bandgap. We demonstrate phase-pure evaporation of SnS in a CdTe-like manufacturing process, achieving phase-pure SnS thin-films through thermal evaporation of SnS powder. We investigate the effects of SnS film thickness and growth rate on film morphology and correlate results with device performance. Working devices are achieved with SnS film thicknesses as low as 370 nm and growth rates of up to 50 Å/s, with efficiencies ranging from 1.1% to 2.6% in as-grown films.

Keywords

energy gap; semiconductor thin films; solar absorber-convertors; solar cells; sulphur compounds; thin film devices; tin compounds; vacuum deposition; Earth-abundant thin-film solar absorber material; cadmium telluride-like manufacturing process; film morphology; growth rate; near-optimal bandgap; strong absorption; thermal evaporation; tin (II) sulfide film thickness; tin (II) sulfide phase-pure evaporation; tin (II) sulfide powder; Films; Morphology; Performance evaluation; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates; Tin; SnS; photovoltaic solar cell; thermal evaporation; tin sulfide;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2014.6925386

Filename

6925386