Antimony Selenide Absorber Thin Films in All-Chemically Deposited Solar Cells

Abstract

Chemically deposited antimony selenide thin film has a coexisting antimony oxide phase which may be converted to crystalline thin films with an optical bandgap of when heated at in nitrogen in the presence of selenium vapor. Instead of this, if the heating is done with an thin film on the chemically deposited thin film, a solid solution with the coexisting oxide phase is produced. The optical bandgap of such absorber material is . The as-deposited thin films as well as those produced by heating are photoconductive. They were incorporated into solar-cell structures developed entirely by chemical deposition on -coated commercial transparent conductive oxide (TCO) glass. The cell structure, , showed an open-circuit voltage of and short-circuit current density of . In the cell produced by heating in nitrogen, is , is , and conversion efficiency is 0.66%. The scalability of the all-chemically deposited solar cell is demonstrated in four series-connected cells of area each, showing short-circuit current of and of under sunlight.