Antimony Selenide Solar Cells Fabricated by Hybrid Reactive Magnetron Sputtering.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Renewable Energy
• Thin-Film Technology

Background:

• Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) is a promising material for thin-film solar cells.
• Optimizing fabrication processes is crucial for enhancing solar cell performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the fabrication of Sb2Se3 thin-film solar cells using pulsed hybrid reactive magnetron sputtering (PHRMS).
• To explore the effects of growth temperature and selenium (Se) pulse period on Sb2Se3 morphology, crystal structure, and composition.
• To assess the impact of these growth parameters and post-annealing on solar cell efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Thin-film deposition of Sb2Se3 using PHRMS.
• Systematic variation of growth temperature and Se pulse period.
• Characterization of material properties (morphology, crystal structure, composition).
• Performance evaluation via current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and power conversion efficiency (PCE) measurements.

Main Results:

• Sb2Se3 growth is dependent on growth temperature, with larger crystal sizes observed at 270 °C.
• Crystal structure and size can be tuned by controlling the Se pulse period, influencing Se incorporation.
• A PCE of 3.7% was achieved for a 900 nm thick Sb2Se3 solar cell fabricated under optimized conditions (270 °C, 0.1 s Se pulse duration, 0.5 s period).
• Post-annealing at 100 °C further improved the open-circuit voltage (Voc), resulting in a final PCE of 3.8%.

Conclusions:

• PHRMS is a viable method for fabricating Sb2Se3 thin-film solar cells.
• Growth temperature and Se pulse period are critical parameters for controlling Sb2Se3 properties and device performance.
• The optimized sputtering process, followed by annealing, yields competitive solar cell efficiencies, surpassing previous sputtering-only methods without post-selenization.