Alkali assisted enhancement of CZTS absorber layer characteristics

Author

Prabhakar, Tejas ; Nagaraju, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Instrum. & Appl. Phys., Indian Inst. of Sci., Bangalore, India

fYear

2011

fDate

19-24 June 2011

Abstract

CZTS (Copper Zinc Tin Sulphide) is a quartnery semiconductor consisting of elements which are abundantly available in nature and are completely non-toxic. Moreover it has a band gap of about 1.5 eV and an absorption coefficient of 10⁴ cm^-1, making it an ideal material to be used as an absorber layer in solar cells. In the present work, CZTS thin films were grown by Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis on two different substrates; soda lime glass and borosilicate glass. Sodium was found to diffuse from the substrate into the film due to high growth temperatures. The crystallite size and electrical conductivity enhanced as a consequence of this alkali penetration into the films. The results are presented in this paper.

Keywords

energy gap; glass; pyrolysis; semiconductor quantum wells; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; tin compounds; zinc compounds; CZTS thin films; absorber layer characteristics; absorption coefficient; alkali assisted enhancement; band gap; borosilicate glass; copper zinc tin sulphide; crystallite size; electrical conductivity; electron volt energy 1.5 eV; high growth temperatures; quartnery semiconductor; soda lime glass; solar cells; ultrasonic spray pyrolysis; Acoustics; Conductivity; Films; Glass; Photovoltaic cells; Substrates;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2011 37th IEEE

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9966-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2011.6186209

Filename

6186209