Organic Chloride Salt Interfacial Modified Crystallization for Efficient Antimony Selenosulfide Solar Cells

Abstract

Antimony selenosulfide, Sb 2 (SSe) 3 , is recognized as an excellent photoactive material owing to its light harvesting capability. There is still room for improvement of the film quality for device performance improvement. Herein, an organic chloride salt [diethylamine hydrochloride, DEA(Cl)] has been introduced for fabricating Sb 2 (SSe) 3 solar cells for the first time. A champion device with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.17% has been achieved with a relatively improved fill factor and open-circuit voltage (V OC ). It has been revealed that DEA(Cl) successfully interacts with Sb 2 (SSe) 3 , which can facilitate the crystallization process to give rise to the closely packed bigger grain sizes with reduced surface cracks; it successfully suppressed the oxidized Sb species (Sb 2 O 3 ) in the Sb 2 (SSe) 3 film to give rise to phase purity, thus leading to superior surface morphology and electrical characteristics of DEA(Cl)-modified Sb 2 (SSe) 3 absorber films. Chloride modification is thus efficiently helpful in suppressing interfacial defects, improving junction quality, and optimizing energy-level alignment. This facile interfacial modification demonstrates the remarkable potential for efficient Sb 2 (SSe) 3 solar cells.

Solvent‐Assisted Hydrothermal Deposition Approach for Highly‐Efficient Sb2(S,Se)3 Thin‐Film Solar Cells

“…By comparing the peak areas of SbO (Figure 2h; Table S1, Supporting Information), the content of oxides respectively decreases from 9.9% in Control‐Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 film to 4.1%, which might be an important determinant for reducing the formation of defects associated with oxygen introduction. [ 16,23 ]…”

“…As the quality of Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 films is largely determined by the manufacturing method, deposition recipes, and posttreatment, continuous efforts have been made to upgrade the fabrication technologies and new understandings of this material. [13][14][15][16] In the past 2 years, we developed an effective deposition strategy for high-quality Sb-based thin films as well as final solar devices, namely the hydrothermal deposition (HD) method. [17,18] Although the highest-performance devices are achieved by this method, its disadvantages cannot be ignored.…”

Defects Passivation via Potassium Iodide Post‐Treatment for Antimony Selenosulfide Solar Cells with Improved Performance

“…where ε (15) is the relative permittivity of Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 , [40] ε 0 the vacuum permittivity, e the charge of electron, and L the thickness of the Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 film, respectively. The thickness of the film was measured to be approximately 300 nm using crosssectional SEM images.…”

“…The kink point is named the trap‐filled limit voltage ( V TFL ). [ 38 ] The trap density (N t ) can be evaluated with the equation: [ 39 ] $$\[ \begin{array}{*{20}{c}}{{N_{\rm{t}}} = \frac{{2\varepsilon {\varepsilon _0}{V_{{\rm{TFL}}}}}}{{e{L^2}}}}\end{array} \]$$where ε (15) is the relative permittivity of Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 , [ 40 ] ε 0 the vacuum permittivity, e the charge of electron, and L the thickness of the Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 film, respectively. The thickness of the film was measured to be approximately 300 nm using cross‐sectional SEM images.…”

Present Status and Future Perspective of Antimony Chalcogenide (Sb2X3) Photovoltaics

“…Azam et al in 2022 introduced a facile interface modification strategy for optimizing energy level alignment, suppressing interfacial defects, and improving junction quality in Sb 2 X 3 solar cells. Hydrothermally synthesized Sb 2 (S,Se) 3 films were modified using organic chloride salt [diethylamine hydrochloride, DEA­(Cl)].…”