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a) J–V curves of Sb2S3 thin film solar cells with and without C60 modification. b) EQE spectra of Sb2S3 thin film solar cells with and without C60. c) The ratio of EQE (−0.2 V)/EQE (0 V).
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Sb2S3 has attracted great research interest very recently as a promising absorber material for photoelectric and photovoltaic devices because of its unique optical and electrical properties and single, stable phase. However, the intrinsic high resistivity property of Sb2S3 material is one of the major factors restricting the further improvement of...
Citations
... On the other hand, higher volume of nanoparticles embedded into the chalcogenide matrices reveals changes in the interfaces as can be seen in EIS results, leading to a reduction of electrical resistance as it would be expected when forming the nanocomposite. The resistance values are consistent with existing literature [29,30], where reported resistances between 30 and 700 U/cm 2 for the Sb 2 S 3 films can be found. Huge differences in reported resistance values are associated to several factors, such as deposition technique, surface roughness, deposition temperature, substrate, etc. ...
Cu nanoparticles obtained by laser ablation of solids in liquids have been incorporated into chemical bath solutions to synthesize Sb2S3–Cu nanocomposite thin films. Aqueous colloidal Cu suspensions were added in different volumes to chemical precursor solutions containing Sb and S ions to synthesize Sb2S3 matrices with Cu nanoparticles embedded within them. The obtained films were annealed at 280 °C in Argon. Structural properties of the films were analyzed by means of X-Ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, optical properties were determined by UV–Vis spectroscopy and surface morphology was observed by SEM and AFM. Presence of Cu nanoparticles into Sb2S3 was corroborated by TEM measurements. Electrical resistance of the films was studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Results are discussed as a function of annealing and nominal Cu suspension content in the precursor solutions.
... The monotonic fall in FF with the absorber thickness can be attributed to the additional series resistance due to thickening of Sb 2 S 3 layer. Literature survey suggest that Sb 2 S 3 films exhibit high (intrinsic) resistivity, with fermi level pinned nearly at the mid of bandgap [76][77][78]. Although the exact reason for high resistivity in Sb 2 S 3 is not clear, researchers corelate it with highly anisotropic Q1D crystal structure, and ultrafast self-carrier trapping. ...
Antimony Sulfide (Sb2S3) is intriguing wide bandgap photovoltaic (PV) material, having great potential for next generation PV devices. The record power conversion efficiency (PCE) for Sb2S3 solar cells is 8.00%, far from its Schockley-Quiser (SQ) limit of 28.64%. Such mediocre performance is mainly attributed to severe interface-induced recombination losses, stemming from mismatched energy-level alignment, and defects at the interfaces. In this work, rational designing, and simulation of Sb2S3 solar cells was performed using solar cell and capacitance (SCAPS). Band offset optimization endorse Zn(O0.3S0.7) and CuSCN as the optimal electron and hole transport layer (ETL and HTL), respectively. The near ideal Zn(O0.3S0.7)/Sb2S3 interface inhibits the detrimental (interface induced) non-radiative losses, leading to substantial improvement in all the device parameters. Simulation results predict spectacular PCE of 13.88% in regular (n−i−p), and 15.89% in HTL-free Sb2S3 solar cells. This work provides genuine recommendations for the fabrication of cost-competitive, eco-friendly, and high PCE-Sb2S3 solar cells.
... 75 The obtained results are consistent with the reported values of conductivity parameters and optical bandgap E g for bulk crystalline samples and amorphous or crystalline thin films, 1.5 r E g (c-Sb 2 S 3 ) r 1.8 eV and 2.0 r E g (a-Sb 2 S 3 ) r 2.4 eV. 1,[76][77][78][79] In addition, the conductivity seems to be intrinsic since 2E a D E g . ...
Antimony sesquisulfide Sb2S3 has become an outstanding advanced functional material in a variety of rapidly growing application fields: smart integrated photonics from the visible to telecom window, cost-efficient photovoltaics, energy storage and transformation. Rational design and tailoring of the required components needs a deep insight into the atomic structure and dynamics of liquid and amorphous Sb2S3, but the detailed information is missing in contrast to crystalline counterparts. Using high-energy X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy over an extended temperature range, supported by first-principles simulations as well as by electrical and thermal studies, we show that the high optical and electric contrast between the SET (crystalline) and RESET (amorphous) logic states is related to the different short and intermediate range order in orthorhombic and vitreous Sb2S3. It includes a strong asymmetry of the Sb-S nearest neighbor distances and a different coordination of antimony sites in the crystal vs. a distorted trigonal environment of defect octahedral SbS3 entities in glassy Sb2S3. Fast crystallization rate at elevated temperatures in liquid antimony sesquisulfide is related to the enhanced fragility, approaching that of telluride phase-change materials, and to a large fraction of ABAB squares (A: Sb; B : S), combined with a remarkable slowdown of the diffusion processes in the vicinity of the glass transition temperature, ensuring a good retention of the amorphous state. Further improvements maybe achieved using anionic (Se) or cationic (Bi) substitution that decreases the temperature of a semiconductor-metal transition and allows bandgap engineering, important for both photonics and photovoltaics.
... 75 The obtained results are consistent with the reported values of conductivity parameters and optical bandgap g for bulk crystalline samples and amorphous or crystalline thin films, 1.5 ≤ g ( -Sb2S3) ≤ 1.8 eV and 2.0 ≤ g ( -Sb2S3) ≤ 2.4 eV. 1,[76][77][78][79] In addition, the conductivity seems to be intrinsic since 2 ≅ g . ...
Antimony sesquisulfide Sb2S3 has become an outstanding advanced functional material in a variety of rapidly growing application fields: smart integrated photonics from the visible to telecom window, cost-efficient photovoltaics, energy storage and transformation. Rational design and tailoring of the required components needs a deep insight into the atomic structure and dynamics of liquid and amorphous Sb2S3, but the detailed information is missing in contrast to crystalline counterparts. Using high-energy X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy over an extended temperature range, supported by first-principles simulations as well as by electrical and thermal studies, we show that the high optical and electric contrast between the SET (crystalline) and RESET (amorphous) logic states is related to the different short and intermediate range order in orthorhombic and vitreous Sb2S3. It includes a strong asymmetry of the Sb-S nearest neighbor distances and a different coordination of antimony sites in the crystal vs. a distorted trigonal environment of defect octahedral SbS3 entities in glassy Sb2S3. Fast crystallization rate at elevated temperatures in liquid antimony sesquisulfide is related to the enhanced fragility, approaching that of telluride phase-change materials, and to a large fraction of squares (: Sb; : S), combined with a remarkable slowdown of the diffusion processes in the vicinity of the glass transition temperature, ensuring a good retention of the amorphous state. Further improvements maybe achieved using anionic (Se) or cationic (Bi) substitution that decreases the temperature of a semiconductor-metal transition and allows bandgap engineering, important for both photonics and photovoltaics. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Raman spectrum of amorphous antimony, evolution of Raman spectra for Sb2S3 as a function of temperature, DFT Raman spectra of size-limited clusters, S-Sb-S bond angle distributions for DFT-optimized clusters, distributions of Sb-S interatomic distances in DFT-optimized clusters, diffraction data for glassy and liquid As2S3, comparison of FPMD modeling with standard PBE and hybrid PBE0 functionals, FPMD modeling of glassy As2S3 under high-pressure, fitting Sb-S partials with asymmetric functions, coordination distributions of sulfur and antimony, bond angle distributions in glassy and liquid Sb2S3, FPMD partial pair-distribution functions in-Sb2S3 and-As2S3, derived Sb and S diffusion coefficients plotted on Arrhenius scale, FPMD estimation of the semiconductor-metal (SC-M) transition temperature SC−M for liquid Sb2S3.
... The peaks at ∼280 and 303 cm −1 can be assigned to the anti-symmetric Sb-S and symmetric stretching modes of Sb-S bonds, respectively. [35][36][37][38][39] Compared to the p-Sb 2 S 3 sample, a higher Raman peak intensity is noted at 303 cm −1 for Sb 2 S 3 -H 2 /Ar, an indication of enhanced symmetric Sb-S stretching due to reduced defect density. The Raman measurement of a single Sb 2 S 3 -H 2 /Ar rod at different positions was also performed (Fig. S9, ESI †). ...
Low-dimensional semiconductors can be used for fabrication of various optoelectronic devices due to their fascinating structures and physical properties. Herein, one-dimensional single-crystal antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) rods with tunable lengths/diameters were...
... Although superstrate Sb 2 S 3 solar cells have achieved PCEs above 7.0%, these values have remained far below the Shockley-Queisser (S−Q) efficiency limit of ~28% [28,31]. The PCE of the Sb 2 S 3 solar cells has been primarily restrained owing to inherent problems such as high intrinsic resistivity, surface and bulk defects, uncontrolled (hk0) orientation, unfavorable band alignment, and large open-circuit voltage (V oc ) deficit [9,32,33]. The low conductivity of Sb 2 S 3 increases both the series resistance and the bulk recombination. ...
The binary chalcogenide material antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) has attracted significant attention as a potential absorber material for photovoltaics (PVs) owing to its suitable bandgap of ~1.7 eV and other unique properties. However, only a few substrate-configured Sb2S3 thin-film solar cells (TFSCs) have been reported, and they demonstrated an extremely low power conversion efficiency (PCE, η < 2.5%) owing to the unfavorable (hk0) orientation of Sb2S3. In most studies, Sb2S3 absorber layers were grown through physical vapor deposition or high-vacuum methods. By contrast, we used a facile hydrothermal approach to deposit Sb2S3 thin films on molybdenum and investigated the effect of post-deposition annealing on the structure, orientation, and morphology of Sb2S3 thin films. Annealing at temperatures ranging from 0 to 350 °C transformed the Sb2S3 thin films from nearly amorphous to polycrystalline with large, horizontally aligned plate-like grains. All the annealed Sb2S3 thin films were confirmed to have a preferred orientation along the (hk0) crystal direction. The fabricated substrate-configured TFSCs with SLG/Mo/Sb2S3/CdS/i-ZnO/Al-doped ZnO/Al configuration exhibited the highest PCE of ~1.0%. Further, over 95% of this initial efficiency was maintained after 90 days. We also addressed the underlying reasons for the low efficiency of Sb2S3 TFSCs to provide a pathway for improving the device performance in the future.
... Conductivity improvement in the perovskite eventually enhances the PCE of solar cell. Similar behavior can be noticed in C 60 assisted Sb 2 S 3 thin film solar cell, where the PCE enhanced after conductivity modification of Sb 2 S 3 thin film using C 60 (Guo et al., 2019). ...
Due to the inherent moisture instability problem of hybrid lead halide perovskites, polymer additives have to turn out to be a significant research area to enhance the moisture stability of these materials. It has been found that polymer engineering on the absorber layer of solar cells significantly improves chemical stability and overall device performance. This work reports the fabrication of pristine and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) polymer capped methylammonium lead chloride (CH3NH3PbCl3) perovskite film via the electrospinning method. A structural study using an X-ray diffractometer shows a sharp fall in average crystallite size from 66.05 nm to 39.69 nm when PVP is used in the synthesis procedure. A similar trend is also seen in the microscopic analysis, which depicts that the particle size has decreased for PVP added CH3NH3PbCl3 perovskite film in comparison to CH3NH3PbCl3 pristine film. The surface coverage and uniformity of the film is much more in the presence of PVP. It has been noted from energy dispersive X-ray analysis that the oxygen content is ~16% more in the pure film, i.e. PVP hinders the effect of moisture in perovskite film, which is the prime objective of this work. Moreover, the
optical properties have been analyzed using diffuse reflectance mode of UV–Vis-NIR spectroscope. Finally, the use of CH3NH3PbCl3 as the electron transport layer has been demonstrated in Glass/FTO/CH3NH3PbCl3/CH3NH3SnI3/Spiro-OMeTAD/Au structured perovskite solar cell using the SCAPS-1D simulator. The abovementionedcell exhibits a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.65%, fill factor (FF) of 72.21%, 32.44 mA/
cm2 of short circuit current density (Jsc), and 0.924 V open-circuit voltage (Voc).
... [44,45] These additives enhanced Sb 2 S 3 solar cells performance remarkably with PCE over 6%. Besides, there are also many other additives, such as C 60 [46] and Ti [47], leading to more efficient Sb 2 S 3 solar cells. Obviously, introducing additive is an efficacious technique to improve the Sb 2 S 3 solar cells performance. ...
Sb2S3 is a promising photovoltaic absorber with appropriate bandgap, excellent light absorption coefficient and great stability. However, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of Sb2S3 planar thin film solar cells is unsatisfactory for further commercial application due to low crystallinity and high resistivity of Sb2S3 film. Here, we introduce an additive of 4-Chloro-3-nitrobenzenesulfonyl Chloride (CSCl) to alleviate these problems. The CSCl molecular contains two terminal Cl with lone pair electrons, which have the interaction with Sb atoms. Thus, the Sb2S3 film with enhanced crystallization and low trap states has been obtained and the resistivity is also decreased. Furthermore, CSCl additive raises the Fermi level of the Sb2S3 film, thereby enhancing the transport of electron from Sb2S3 to TiO2. Consequently, the optimal PCE of Sb2S3 solar cells is raised from 4.20% (control device) to 5.84%. Our research demonstrates a novel additive to enhance the photoelectric performance of Sb2S3 solar cells.
... The band gap of the Sb 2 S 3 absorbing layer is approximately 1.7 eV. Therefore, the spectral response of Sb 2 S 3 solar cells is cut off near 760 nm, which agrees well with the experimental results [53][54][55]. When the CBM ETL changes between -3.2 and À 4.4 eV, the spectral response of Sb 2 S 3 solar cells is very close as the wavelength is longer than 400 nm [56]. ...
Sb 2 S 3 thin-film solar cells have recently gained attention due to their low cost, low toxicity, and simple fabrication. However, there is still plenty of room to improve their performance. It is known that efficient carrier transport is essential for high performance Sb 2 S 3 solar cells, which, unfortunately, is difficult to characterize by conventional testing methods. Therefore, the carrier transport process in Sb 2 S 3 solar cells was studied here using a theoretical simulation. The results show that high solar performances can be achieved with a wide parameter window for selecting the electron transport layer as well as the hole transport layer, viz., with a conduction band minimum of the electron transport layer (À 4.4 eV < CBM < À 3.2 eV), and a valence band maximum of the hole transport layer (À 5.2 eV > VBM > À 6.4 eV). Here the interfacial potential barrier become negligible and as a consequence electrons and holes cross at ease, which guarantee the good device performance. Indeed, a Sb 2 S 3 solar cell with a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) can be obtained by ensuring that the carrier transport and collection are unimpeded in the device, i.e., the Sb 2 S 3-based single junction solar cells shows high efficiency of 19.53%. Furthermore, we found that optimized Sb 2 S 3 solar cells are particularly suitable for use as the top cell of tandem structure solar cells. Thus, a Sb 2 S 3 /Sb 2 Se 3 double junction solar cell structure was proposed. With a 0.5 μm thick Sb 2 S 3 absorber, double junction solar cells could achieve a theoretical efficiency as high as 26.64%. Our results based on the rotational design of bandgap alignment provide a general guide rule for selecting the optimal electron transport layer as well as the hole transport layer to boost the power conversion efficiency for Sb 2 S 3 solar cells up to its theoretical limit.
