Post-Treatment of TiO Film Enables High-Quality SbSe Film Deposition for Solar Cell Applications.

The TiO thin film is considered as a promising wide band gap electron-transporting material. However, due to the strong Ti-O bond, it displays an inert surface characteristic causing difficulty in the adsorption and deposition of metal chalcogenide films such as SbSe. In this study, a simple CdCl post-treatment is conducted to functionalize the TiO thin film, enabling the induction of nucleation sites and growth of high-quality SbSe.

A Transparent, High-Performance, and Stable Sb S Photoanode Enabled by Heterojunction Engineering with Conjugated Polycarbazole Frameworks for Unbiased Photoelectrochemical Overall Water Splitting Devices.

Developing low-cost, high-performance, and durable photoanodes is essential in solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) energy conversion. Sb S is a low-bandgap (≈1.7 eV) n-type semiconductor with a maximum theoretical solar conversion efficiency of ≈28% for PEC water splitting.

Distinctive Deep-Level Defects in Non-Stoichiometric Sb Se Photovoltaic Materials.

Characterizing defect levels and identifying the compositional elements in semiconducting materials are important research subject for understanding the mechanism of photogenerated carrier recombination and reducing energy loss during solar energy conversion. Here it shows that deep-level defect in antimony triselenide (Sb Se ) is sensitively dependent on the stoichiometry. For the first time it experimentally observes the formation of amphoteric Sb defect in Sb-rich Sb Se .

Revealing composition and structure dependent deep-level defect in antimony trisulfide photovoltaics.

Antimony trisulfide (SbS) is a kind of emerging light-harvesting material with excellent stability and abundant elemental storage. Due to the quasi-one-dimensional symmetry, theoretical investigations have pointed out that there exist complicated defect properties. However, there is no experimental verification on the defect property.

In Situ Surface Fluorination of TiO Nanocrystals Reinforces Interface Binding of Perovskite Layer for Highly Efficient Solar Cells with Dramatically Enhanced Ultraviolet-Light Stability.

Low-temperature solution-processed TiO nanocrystals (LT-TiO) have been extensively applied as electron transport layer (ETL) of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the low electron mobility, high density of electronic trap states, and considerable photocatalytic activity of TiO result in undesirable charge recombination at the ETL/perovskite interface and notorious instability of PSCs under ultraviolet (UV) light. Herein, LT-TiO nanocrystals are in situ fluorinated via a simple nonhydrolytic method, affording formation of Ti─F bonds, and consequently increase electron mobility, decrease density of electronic trap states, and inhibit photocatalytic activity.

Direct Hydrothermal Deposition of Antimony Triselenide Films for Efficient Planar Heterojunction Solar Cells.

Antimony selenide (SbSe) has attracted increasing attention in photovoltaic applications due to its unique quasi-one-dimensional crystal structure, suitable optical band gap with a high extinction coefficient, and excellent stability. As a promising light-harvesting material, the available synthetic methods for the fabrication of a high-quality film have been quite limited and seriously impeded both the fundamental study and the efficiency improvement. Here, we developed a facile and low-cost hydrothermal method for in situ deposition of SbSe films for solar cell applications.

Aqueous solution processed MoS as an eco-friendly hole-transport layer for all-inorganic SbSe solar cells.

Here we report a solution processed environmentally friendly MoS3 hole-transport material for Sb2Se3 solar cells, where MoS3 exhibits a matched energy level relative to Sb2Se3. In the synthesis, H2S produced by the thermal decomposition of (NH4)2MoS4 is found to efficiently eliminate the antimony oxide impurity formed on the Sb2Se3 surface. Finally, the all-inorganic Sb2Se3 solar cell delivers an efficiency of 6.

Probing the trap states in N-i-P Sb(S,Se) solar cells by deep-level transient spectroscopy.

In this study, we provide fundamental understanding on defect properties of the Sb(S,Se) absorber film and the impact on transmission of photo-excited carriers in N-i-P architecture solar cells by both deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and optical deep level transient spectroscopy (ODLTS) characterizations. Through conductance-voltage and temperature-dependent current-voltage characterization under a dark condition, we find that the Sb(S,Se) solar cell demonstrates good rectification and high temperature tolerance. The DLTS results indicates that there are two types of deep level hole traps H1 and H2 with active energy of 0.