A post-deposition annealing approach for organic residue control in TiO and its impact on SbSe/TiO device performance.

We report a systematic investigation on the influence of two-step post-deposition treatments (PDTs) on TiO buffer layers deposited by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) for emerging SbSe photovoltaics. Air annealing is a typical method for recrystallizing chemically deposited TiO films. However, organic residues (such as carbon species) from a precursor solution based on titanium tetraisopropoxide and acetylacetone may still remain on the TiO surface, therefore requiring an additional annealing step.