Download or read book Studies on Cu2znsnse4 Thin Film As Solar Cell Absorber Layer written by Suresh Babu Gandham and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solar cells have high potential as an alternative energy technology for fulfilling the energy needs. It has the additional advantage being environmentally friendly. Solar photovoltaic cells based on single crystalline Si are prohibitively expensive. Hence, researchers are looking for solar cell materials which are cheap and abundant. Successful thin film solar cells based on CuInGaSe2 uses costly and non-abundant elements like In & Ga, CdTe uses toxic material Cd. To overcome these associated difficulties, we have chosen Cu2ZnSnSe4 thin films which contain elements which are relatively cheap, abundant and less toxic. In this book a brief review of the solar cell absorber layers were presented along with their successes and present market values. Focus is mainly concentrated on the qualities and suitability of Cu2ZnSnSe4 thin films as absorber layers. Preparation (using co-evaporation)and characterization details of this materials are highlighted. Parameters like optimum deposition conditions and ratio between elements re given. Brief description of window preparation and characterization is also presented along with the scope for future work to encourage the readers.
Download or read book Thin Film Solar Cells From Earth Abundant Materials written by Subba Ramaiah Kodigala and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2013-11-14 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fundamental concept of the book is to explain how to make thin film solar cells from the abundant solar energy materials by low cost. The proper and optimized growth conditions are very essential while sandwiching thin films to make solar cell otherwise secondary phases play a role to undermine the working function of solar cells. The book illustrates growth and characterization of Cu2ZnSn(S1-xSex)4 thin film absorbers and their solar cells. The fabrication process of absorber layers by either vacuum or non-vacuum process is readily elaborated in the book, which helps for further development of cells. The characterization analyses such as XPS, XRD, SEM, AFM etc., lead to tailor the physical properties of the absorber layers to fit well for the solar cells. The role of secondary phases such as ZnS, Cu2-xS,SnS etc., which are determined by XPS, XRD or Raman, in the absorber layers is promptly discussed. The optical spectroscopy analysis, which finds band gap, optical constants of the films, is mentioned in the book. The electrical properties of the absorbers deal the influence of substrates, growth temperature, impurities, secondary phases etc. The low temperature I-V and C-V measurements of Cu2ZnSn(S1-xSex)4 thin film solar cells are clearly described. The solar cell parameters such as efficiency, fill factor, series resistance, parallel resistance provide handful information to understand the mechanism of physics of thin film solar cells in the book. The band structure, which supports to adjust interface states at the p-n junction of the solar cells is given. On the other hand the role of window layers with the solar cells is discussed. The simulation of theoretical efficiency of Cu2ZnSn(S1-xSex)4 thin film solar cells explains how much efficiency can be experimentally extracted from the cells. - One of the first books exploring how to conduct research on thin film solar cells, including reducing costs - Detailed instructions on conducting research
Download or read book 2015 IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference PVSC written by IEEE Staff and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-14 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: scientific and engineering technical conference covering all aspects of photovoltaics materials, devices, systems and reliability
Download or read book Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide Based Thin Film Solar Cells written by Kentaro Ito and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with an overview and historical background of Copper Zinc Tin Sulphide (CZTS) technology, subsequent chapters cover properties of CZTS thin films, different preparation methods of CZTS thin films, a comparative study of CZTS and CIGS solar cell, computational approach, and future applications of CZTS thin film solar modules to both ground-mount and rooftop installation. The semiconducting compound (CZTS) is made up earth-abundant, low-cost and non-toxic elements, which make it an ideal candidate to replace Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) and CdTe solar cells which face material scarcity and toxicity issues. The device performance of CZTS-based thin film solar cells has been steadily improving over the past 20 years, and they have now reached near commercial efficiency levels (10%). These achievements prove that CZTS-based solar cells have the potential to be used for large-scale deployment of photovoltaics. With contributions from leading researchers from academia and industry, many of these authors have contributed to the improvement of its efficiency, and have rich experience in preparing a variety of semiconducting thin films for solar cells.
Download or read book Advances in Thin Film Solar Cells written by I M Dharmadasa and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book concentrates on the latest developments in our understanding of solid-state device physics. The material presented is mainly experimental and based on CdTe thin-film solar cells. It extends these new findings to CIGS thin-film solar cells and presents a new device design based on graded bandgap multilayer solar cells. This design has been experimentally tested using the well-researched GaAs/AlGaAs system and initial devices have shown impressive device parameters. These devices are capable of absorbing all radiation (UV, visible, and infra-red) within the solar spectrum and combines "impact ionization" and "impurity photovoltaic" effects. The improved device understanding presented in this book should impact and guide future device design and low-cost thin-film solar panel manufacture.
Download or read book Characterization of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Kesterite Thin Film Solar Cells written by Lisa Carina Mareike Risch and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present thesis deals with the characterization of Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe) kesterite thin film solar cells. Over the last years, kesterite based devices have attracted growing attention. As Cu, Sn and Zn are earth-abundant metals, the kesterite compounds are promising candidates as absorber materials for the mass production of low-cost photovoltaic devices. However, kesterite solar cells suffer from a severe open circuit voltage (Voc) deficit in comparison with other PV technologies, resulting in a significant performance gap between thin film kesterite and chalcopyrite (CIGS) based devices. Best reported efficiencies for the related CIGS thin film technology are 22.6% at cell size and 17.9% for a commercial module - very close to the performance of Si solar cells - while kesterite solar cells remain below 13% power conversion efficiency. Understanding the fundamental properties of kesterite materials and devices and solving challenges associated with their fabrication are the key to improve device performances.In the framework of this thesis, different loss mechanisms related to the low Voc values of kesterite solar cells have been identified and characterized. Two major factors are thereby observed to be responsible for the significant Voc deficit: non-radiative recombination and band tailing. These aspects are related to the presence of secondary phases and defects that have a significant impact on the pn-heterojunction. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the detection of secondary phases and defects and the role of the n-type buffer layer.
Download or read book The Study of Grain Boundaries in Polycrystalline Thin film Solar Cells written by Bingrui Joel Li and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silicon is one of the most studied semiconductor materials with techniques to control and manipulate its properties well established by the integrated circuit (IC) industry. While silicon wafer-based technology constitutes about 85% of the photovoltaics (PV) market, there are compelling reasons to develop thin-film solar cells. These include potential material cost and energy savings achievable with thin absorber layers of direct band-gap thin film materials, and the potential for incorporation of thin film PV onto inexpensive, flexible, or building material substrates, which opens up the possibility of new applications. Given the success of silicon wafer-based solar cells in the PV market, crystalline silicon on glass is a natural choice for thin-film PV technology. However, the efficiency of this technology is still too low to compete in the PV market. In fact, its record efficiency is only 10.5% which was achieved by CSG Solar. In order to boost the efficiency of this technology, we explore the use of ion-beam assisted deposition (IBAD) to create biaxially-textured silicon films which can potentially have less defects at the grain boundaries. Experimentally, we have fabricated an operational biaxially-textured silicon solar cell whose Voc is likely to have been affected by intra-grain defects as shown by our transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image. In order to investigate the interplay between grain boundary and intra-grain defects on solar cell performance and determine the potential benefits of developing biaxially-textured film solar cells, I used Synopsys' two-dimensional technology computer-aided design (TCAD) Sentaurus simulation tool. In general, the simulations found that biaxially-textured silicon solar cells improve solar cell efficiencies but there is small improvement for devices that have both large grains and low intra-grain carrier lifetime. Among the various thin-film technologies, CdTe and Cu(In, Ga)(S, Se)2 (CIGSSe), dominate the thin-film PV market. However in recent years, the photovoltaic community has seen growing interest in CZTS-based thin-film solar cells which include Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS), Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe) and Cu2ZnSn(S, Se)4 (CZTSSe) solar cells. This is driven by their potential to replace Cu(In, Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) and CdTe solar cells which face material scarcity, toxicity and market acceptance issues. In polycrystalline CIGSe-based (CIGSe, CISe, CuGaSe2 (CGSe)) and CdTe solar cells, grain boundaries do not seem to affect solar cell efficiency as much. In fact, some studies have identified grain boundaries as the source of high efficiency in polycrystalline CIGSe-based and CdTe solar cells. CIGSe-based and CZTS-based films are similar in terms of growth methods, optoelectronic and crystallographic properties. Because of these similarities and the benign nature of grain boundaries in CIGSe-based and CdTe films, it would be useful to examine the properties of grain boundaries in these materials. Using scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM) and conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) techniques, I investigated the electronic properties of grain boundaries in CIGSe, CZTS and CZTSSe solar cells. SKPM measurements carried out in this work reveal a higher positive surface potential at the grain boundaries as compared to the grain while C-AFM measurements show higher current flow in the vicinity of the grain boundaries. These two measurement results are similar to those obtained for high quality CIGSe and CdTe and together they demonstrate the enhanced minority carrier collection taking place at the grain boundaries of CZTS and CZTSSe. Although SKPM measurement are susceptible to topographical and geometric effects, we believe that this effect is not dominating in our measurements as topography and surface potential profile lines are not exact mirror images of one another and regions of similar height have different potentials and vice versa. Nonetheless, I used a technique that involves photoreduction of AgNO3 to provide convincing evidence that our SKPM result is not a result of experimental artifacts but is truly indicative of the higher positive potential at the grain boundary. Having benign or beneficial grain boundaries have been found to be essential for achieving high efficiencies in polycrystalline CIGSe and CdTe solar cells. In my investigation, I found that high efficiency CZTS and CZTSSe solar cells have similar grain boundary electronic properties as high efficiency CIGSe and CdTe solar cells. As such, it might be possible for CZTS and CZTSSe solar cells to achieve similar high efficiencies as CIGSe and CdTe solar cells if other defects (intra-grain, surface and interfacial) are not limiting efficiencies.
Download or read book Thin Film Solar Cells written by K.L. Chopra and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1983-07-31 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You, 0 Sun, are the eye of the world You are the soul of all embodied beings You are the source of all creatures You are the discipline of all engaged in work" - Translated from Mahabharata 3rd Century BC Today, energy is the lifeline and status symbol of "civilized" societies. All nations have therefore embarked upon Research and Development pro grams of varying magnitudes to explore and effectively utilize renewable sources of energy. Albeit a low-grade energy with large temporal and spatial variations, solar energy is abundant, cheap, clean, and renewable, and thus presents a very attractive alternative source. The direct conver sion of solar energy to electricity (photovoltaic effect) via devices called solar cells has already become an established frontier area of science and technology. Born out of necessity for remote area applications, the first commercially manufactured solar cells - single-crystal silicon and thin film CdS/Cu2S - were available well over 20 years ago. Indeed, all space vehicles today are powered by silicon solar cells. But large-scale terrestrial applications of solar cells still await major breakthroughs in terms of discovering new and radical concepts in solar cell device structures, utilizing relatively more abundant, cheap, and even exotic materials, and inventing simpler and less energy intensive fabrication processes. No doubt, this extraordinary challenge in R/D has led to a virtual explosion of activities in the field of photovoltaics in the last several years.
Download or read book New Processing Approaches for Cu2ZnSnSe4 based Solar Cells written by Simón López Mariño and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present thesis focuses on the promising semiconductor material kesterite, Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4, known as CZTS(e), which is used in the second generation of solar cells, generally known as thin film photovoltaics (PV). This material relies on earth-abundant, low-cost and low toxic elements which certainly attract the interest of both research community and industry. Kesterite could replace its well known and already commercialised thin film counterpart, CuIn(1-x)Gax(SySe1-y)2 (CIGS), since it has similar structural and optoelectronic properties and also cell architecture, but does not rely on scarce elements such as In and Ga. In order to achieve a commercial stage kesterite research needs to increase its still limited efficiency (12.6%), which is currently below the 15-18% required value. To achieve this goal, new tailored and customized processing solutions, dealing with major problems of this technology should be investigated and implemented. Moreover, increasing the potential market penetration of kesterite by diversifying its possible applications range can also be an appealing and interesting driver for the industry. This work focuses on the pure Selenium kesterite, CZTSe, using a versatile and simple sequential two step process to synthesize this absorber. Sputtering and reactive thermal annealing are the techniques chosen to produce CZTSe based solar cells. In addition, two different substrates were used, soda lime glass (SLG) and flexible and light-weight stainless steel (SS) foils. The thesis scope is divided into two interrelated parts: The first one deals with the proposal of novel and customized approaches to improve CZTSe-based devices performance, mainly using glass substrates. Three innovative processing solutions are developed, proven and included in this work. Two of them deal with the critic Mo back contact region and the third one focuses on the absorber surface. As a result, two original ways to control the decomposition of the back contact interface and the excessive generation of MoSe2 (overselenization) during the thermal treatment along with a chemical passivation route for the CZTSe surface are reported. Intermediate and thin i-ZnO layers and Mo multilayer configurations combined with nanometric MoO2 layers are introduced at the back interface. Likewise, KMnO4/H2SO4 + Na2S aqueous solutions capable of removing ZnSe while passivating the absorber surface are successfully implemented. The second part of this thesis focuses on the use of flexible and light-weight substrates alternative to conventional and rigid glass based ones. The use of these substrates add an extra value to the already mentioned advantages that kesterite accounts for. A biggest application niche, such as building integration photovoltaics (BIPV), portable consumer electronics, car chassis integration, space applications¿ etc., along with high throughput roll-to-roll (R2R) industrial manufacturing compatibility, could definitively ease kesterite commercialization. SS foils have been used successfully in this work, producing the first CZTSe flexible device ever reported in the literature. This thesis includes a detailed optimization of Cr impurity diffusion barriers and Mo back contacts in order to minimize the detrimental effects of metallic substrate impurities in the devices performance. Additionally, a comparison of different extrinsic alkali doping methods to effectively introduce Na and/or K in flexible and light-weight CZTSe solar cells is also reported. Na doped Mo targets (MoNa), SLG pieces introduced during the annealing, NaF and KF pre-absorber synthesis evaporation (PAS) and post deposition evaporation (PDT) were investigated. We report for the first time a detailed optimization for the use of MoNa layers combined with CZTS(e) technology. In regard to the K investigation, the work developed in this thesis can also be considered as pioneer in the field.
Download or read book Earth Abundant Materials for Solar Cells written by Sadao Adachi and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Systematically describes the physical and materials properties of copper-based quaternary chalcogenide semiconductor materials, enabling their potential for photovoltaic device applications. Intended for scientists and engineers, in particular, in the fields of multinary semiconductor physics and a variety of photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices.
Download or read book Semiconductor Materials for Solar Photovoltaic Cells written by M. Parans Paranthaman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews the current status of semiconductor materials for conversion of sunlight to electricity, and highlights advances in both basic science and manufacturing. Photovoltaic (PV) solar electric technology will be a significant contributor to world energy supplies when reliable, efficient PV power products are manufactured in large volumes at low cost. Expert chapters cover the full range of semiconductor materials for solar-to-electricity conversion, from crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon to cadmium telluride, copper indium gallium sulfide selenides, dye sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, and environmentally friendly copper zinc tin sulfide selenides. The latest methods for synthesis and characterization of solar cell materials are described, together with techniques for measuring solar cell efficiency. Semiconductor Materials for Solar Photovoltaic Cells presents the current state of the art as well as key details about future strategies to increase the efficiency and reduce costs, with particular focus on how to reduce the gap between laboratory scale efficiency and commercial module efficiency. This book will aid materials scientists and engineers in identifying research priorities to fulfill energy needs, and will also enable researchers to understand novel semiconductor materials that are emerging in the solar market. This integrated approach also gives science and engineering students a sense of the excitement and relevance of materials science in the development of novel semiconductor materials. · Provides a comprehensive introduction to solar PV cell materials · Reviews current and future status of solar cells with respect to cost and efficiency · Covers the full range of solar cell materials, from silicon and thin films to dye sensitized and organic solar cells · Offers an in-depth account of the semiconductor material strategies and directions for further research · Features detailed tables on the world leaders in efficiency demonstrations · Edited by scientists with experience in both research and industry
Download or read book Study of Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Oxide as Absorber and Doped Layers for Thin film Solar Cell Applications written by Chuang-Chuang Tsai and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fabrication Of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Thin Film Solar Cells By A Two Stage Process written by Yejiao Wang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The properties of CZTSe thin-films and the performance of CZTSe thin-film solar cells have been characterized using techniques, including J-V, Raman spectroscopy, spectral response, and SEM/EDS. The best performance CZTSe thin-film solar cell that have been accomplished, has an open circuit voltage of 0.42 volt, shirt circuit current densities of 14.5 mA/cm2, fill factor of 47%, and efficiency of 2.86%.
Download or read book Fabrication of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Thin Film Solar Cells Using and Alloy based Processing Strategy written by Teoman Taskesen and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Development of Cu2ZnSnSe4 Based Thin Film Solar Cells by PVD and Chemical Based Processes written by Markus Neuschitzer and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowadays mono- and multicrystalline silicon have the highest market share of all PV technologies but thin film solar cells based on CdTe or Cu(In, Ga)Se2 (CIGS) absorbers recently show promising high power conversion efficiency values and due to their short energy payback time, minimal use of high purity material and low cost, they attract more and more attention. However, one concern of thin film PV based on CdTe or CIGS is the use of scare elements like tellurium or indium and gallium which could become a bottleneck if the technology wants to scale up to the terawatt level. Therefore, there is a high interest to replace these scare elements by more abundant ones and find suitable earth abundant photovoltaic absorbers. Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe) or Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) and its sulphur-selenide solid solution are promising candidates to replace CIGS as absorber material due to its composition of more earth abundant elements. In literature CZTSe and CZTS are referred to as kesterite due to its crystal structure. However, there is still a large gap between power conversion efficiencies of solar cells based on kesterite absorber material and more established thin film solar cells, thus intensive research is still necessary to close this gap. The main goal of this thesis was to develop and optimize heterostructure solar cells based on Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorbers, by cost effective physical vapour deposition (PVD) and chemical based processes. Special focus is put on an improved understanding of the influence of the surface properties of kesterite absorbers on device performance and furthermore to optimize the front interface, i.e. buffer layer as well as the kesterite absorber layer itself. A detailed study investigating the influence of the surface chemistry on device performance is presented. After a chemical etching to remove unwanted ZnSe secondary phases formed during CZTSe absorber synthesis a low temperature post deposition annealing at 200ðC of the full solar cell is necessary to improve device efficiencies from below 3% to over 8%. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis showed that this post deposition annealing promotes the diffusion of Zn towards the surface and Cu towards the bulk resulting in a Zn enriched and Cu depleted surface region, which is crucial for high device performance. Additionally experimental surface treatments confirm the necessity of a Cu-poor and Zn-rich surface and the reason for this beneficial surface composition are discussed in detail. Furthermore, the CdS buffer layer which is typically used in kesterite based heterostructures solar cells was optimized and allowed improvements in device performance of 1% absolute. This optimization was further extended to Cd-free ZnS(O, OH) buffer layer. Efficiencies close to that of CdS reference solar cells could be achieved using optimized ZnS(O, OH) buffer layer. Additionally to the front interface optimization, a Ge assisted crystallization process for nanocrystalline CZTSe precursors was developed which largely increase grain growth and boost open circuit voltages (Voc) to promising high values due to the elimination of deep defects. Since the low Voc values is identified of one of the main bottlenecks of kesterite technology, the improvements achieved are highly promising and give important insight for further possible optimizations.
Download or read book Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticle absorber layers for thin film solar cells written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Issues in Materials and Manufacturing Research 2013 Edition written by and published by ScholarlyEditions. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 1234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues in Materials and Manufacturing Research: 2013 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ book that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Additional Research. The editors have built Issues in Materials and Manufacturing Research: 2013 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Additional Research in this book to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Materials and Manufacturing Research: 2013 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.
