Interface engineering of antimony selenide solar cells: a review on the optimization of energy band alignments

• Published in: JPhys Energy Vol. 4; no. 4; pp. 44002 - 44019
• Main Authors: Wang, Yazi, Ji, Seunghwan, Shin, Byungha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.10.2022
• Subjects: Absorptivity; Antimony compounds; antimony selenide (Sb; Carrier recombination; Copper indium gallium selenides; Electron transport; electron-transporting layers; energy band alignments; Energy bands; Energy conversion efficiency; hole-transporting layers; interface engineering; Open circuit voltage; Optimization; Photovoltaic cells; Selenides; Solar cells; Substrates; Thin films
• ISSN: 2515-7655; 2515-7655
• DOI: 10.1088/2515-7655/ac8578

Abstract Earth-abundant and environmentally benign antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) has emerged as a promising light-harvesting absorber for thin-film photovoltaic (PV) devices due to its high absorption coefficient, nearly ideal bandgap for PV applications, excellent long-term stability, and intrinsically benign boundaries if properly aligned on the substrate. The record power conversion efficiency of Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells has currently reached 9.2%, however, it is far lower than the champion efficiencies of other chalcogenide thin-film solar cells such as CdTe (22.1%) and Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 (23.35%). The inferior device performance of Sb 2 Se 3 thin-film solar cells mainly results from a large open-circuit voltage deficit, which is strongly related to the interface recombination loss. Accordingly, constructing proper band alignments between Sb 2 Se 3 and neighboring charge extraction layers through interface engineering to reduce carrier recombination losses is one of the key strategies to achieving high-efficiency Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells. In this review, the fundamental properties of Sb 2 Se 3 thin films, and the recent progress made in Sb 2 Se 3 solar cells are outlined, with a special emphasis on the optimization of energy band alignments through the applications of electron-transporting layers and hole-transporting layers. Furthermore, the potential research directions to overcome the bottlenecks of Sb 2 Se 3 thin-film solar cell performance are also presented.