Efficient Se-rich Sb2Se3/CdS Planar-Heterojunction Solar Cells by Sequential Processing: Control and Influence of Se Content

Quasi-one-dimensional chalcogenides are under the spotlight due to their unique properties for several technological applications including computing, photonic, sensing and energy conversion. In particular, antimony chalcogenides have recently experienced incredible progresses as emerging photovoltaic materials. In this work, the fabrication by a sequential process of Sb2Se3 solar cells is addressed, and the annealing temperature is found as the main parameter controlling the composition of the Se-rich absorbers. Building on this, a systematic study of the evolution of the optolectronic parameters of the solar cells as a function of the Se excess is presented together with a thourough characterization of the devices that sheds light on their main limiting factors. A record power conversion efficiency of 5.7% is achieved, the highest reported value using reactive annealing on a metallic precursor for this material.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 712949 (TECNIOspring PLUS) and the Government of Catalonia's Agency for Business Competitiveness (ACCIÓ). This research has also been supported by the H2020 Programme under the project INFINITE-CELL (grant no. H2020-MSCA RISE-2017-777968), by the DURACIS project from the SOLARERANET International program (subproject ref. PCIN-2017-041 funded by Spanish MINECO), by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under the WINCOST (grant no. ENE2016-80788-C5-1-R), and by the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF, FEDER Programa Competitivitat)