Thermal degradation and defect growth in CZTSSe photovoltaic devices

Solvothermal Synthesis of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Nanoparticles and Their Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Activity

“…The kesterite family includes quaternary and quinary compounds such as Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 (CZTS), Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 (CZTSe), and their alloys (Cu 2 ZnSn(S x ,Se 1−x ) 4 (CZTSSe), where 0 ≤ x ≤ 1) [2][3][4][5]. The kesterite constituent elements are less toxic and are the more usual elements of copper, zinc, and sulfur, which are the 26th, 25th, and 17th most abundant elements in the Earth's crust, respectively [2,[6][7][8][9][10]. All these kesterite semiconductor materials exhibited outstanding optoelectronic properties such as broad optical absorbance over the entire visible region with high absorption coefficient (>10 4 cm −1 ) [6,7,9,11] and optimal optical bandgap (0.9-1.6 eV), allowing the material to harvest maximum photons [12], good photo-stability [13], and multi-dimensional symmetric carrier transport [11,14].…”

“…The kesterite constituent elements are less toxic and are the more usual elements of copper, zinc, and sulfur, which are the 26th, 25th, and 17th most abundant elements in the Earth's crust, respectively [2,[6][7][8][9][10]. All these kesterite semiconductor materials exhibited outstanding optoelectronic properties such as broad optical absorbance over the entire visible region with high absorption coefficient (>10 4 cm −1 ) [6,7,9,11] and optimal optical bandgap (0.9-1.6 eV), allowing the material to harvest maximum photons [12], good photo-stability [13], and multi-dimensional symmetric carrier transport [11,14]. Moreover, it is possible to tune their optoelectronic properties (i.e., optical bandgap, E g ) through modulation of the kesterite phase composition (S/Se ratio) [4].…”