Spark plasma sintering of Sb2Se3 sputtering target towards highly efficient thin film solar cells

G. Liang (1) , X. Chen (1) , R. Tang (1) , Y. Liu (2) , Y. Li (2) , P. Luo (1) , Z. Su (1) , Xianghua Zhang (3) , P. Fan (1) , S. Chen (1)

1 Shenzhen University
2 Guizhou Institute of Technology
3 ISCR - Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes

Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) is a potential absorber material for environment-friendly and cost-efficiently photovoltaics due to its material advantages and superior optoelectronic properties. In this work, we proposed a facile and versatile method of ball milling followed with spark plasma sintering (SPS) to prepare high-quality Sb2Se3 sputtering target. Then the highly crystalline Sb2Se3 thin film consisted of large crystal grains can be prepared by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering with an additional post-selenization heat treatment. An efficient substrate structured Sb2Se3 thin film solar cell with configuration of Mo/Sb2Se3/CdS/ITO/Ag was fabricated and a champion device with highly interesting power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.08% has been achieved. Superior device performances are closely related to the Sb2Se3 absorber layer with benign growth orientation and the Sb2Se3/CdS heterojunction interface with smooth contact, which induced less recombination loss. The combined features of homemade sputtering target and advantageous thin film preparation technology further demonstrated its attractive application potential in thin film photovoltaic scenarios. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Magnetron sputtering; Post-selenization; Sb2Se3; Spark plasma sintering; Sputtering target; Thin film solar cells

Domains: Chemical Sciences

G. Liang, X. Chen, R. Tang, Y. Liu, Y. Li, et al.. Spark plasma sintering of Sb2Se3 sputtering target towards highly efficient thin film solar cells. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 2020, 211, pp.110530. ⟨10.1016/j.solmat.2020.110530⟩. ⟨hal-02536599⟩