A Two-Step Absorber Deposition Approach To Overcome Shunt Losses in Thin-Film Solar Cells: Using Tin Sulfide as a Proof-of-Concept Material System
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Buonassis_A two-step absorber.pdf
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Author(s)
Yang, Chuanxi
Moriarty, Tom
Gordon, Roy G.
Buonassisi, Tonio
Steinmann, Vera
Chakraborty, Rupak
Rekemeyer, Paul Harlan
Hartman, Katherine
Brandt, Riley E
Polizzotti, James Alexander
Date Issued
August 2016
Journal
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Steinmann, Vera et al. “A Two-Step Absorber Deposition Approach To Overcome Shunt Losses in Thin-Film Solar Cells: Using Tin Sulfide as a Proof-of-Concept Material System.” ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 8, 34 (August 2016): 22664–22670 © 2016 American Chemical Society
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
As novel absorber materials are developed and screened for their photovoltaic (PV) properties, the challenge remains to reproducibly test promising candidates for high-performing PV devices. Many early-stage devices are prone to device shunting due to pinholes in the absorber layer, producing “false-negative” results. Here, we demonstrate a device engineering solution toward a robust device architecture, using a two-step absorber deposition approach. We use tin sulfide (SnS) as a test absorber material. The SnS bulk is processed at high temperature (400 °C) to stimulate grain growth, followed by a much thinner, low-temperature (200 °C) absorber deposition. At a lower process temperature, the thin absorber overlayer contains significantly smaller, densely packed grains, which are likely to provide a continuous coating and fill pinholes in the underlying absorber bulk. We compare this two-step approach to the more standard approach of using a semi-insulating buffer layer directly on top of the annealed absorber bulk, and we demonstrate a more than 3.5× superior shunt resistance R[subscript sh] with smaller standard error σ[subscript Rsh]. Electron-beam-induced current (EBIC) measurements indicate a lower density of pinholes in the SnS absorber bulk when using the two-step absorber deposition approach. We correlate those findings to improvements in the device performance and device performance reproducibility.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b07198
