Rapid prep work of CdSe thin-film solar cells

• The silicon-based tandem solar cell is considered one of the most promising strategy to damage the theoretical performance restriction of single-junction Si solar cells.

With Si-based tandem solar cells as the bottom cells, the optimal bandgap of leading cells is 1.7 eV, which enables high effectiveness of ~ 45% for two-junction tandem solar cells. III-V semiconductors/Si as well as perovskites/Si tandem solar cells have accomplished high effectiveness degrees of ~ 30%, proving their usefulness. Nevertheless, the stability challenges of perovskite and also the high-cost problem of III-V semiconductors mainly limit their large applications. Exploring new steady, affordable, and also bandgap 1.7 eV solar products is of wonderful relevance in science and wide prospects in technology.

Cadmium selenide (CdSe), a binary II-VI semiconductor, appreciates terrific prospective in the application of Si-based tandem solar cells due to the appropriate bandgap of ~ 1.7 eV, exceptional optoelectronic buildings, high security, and low manufacturing expense. Nevertheless, the development of CdSe thin-film solar cells remains as it was three decades back, as well as there are couple of systematic studies on CdSe thin-film solar cells in recent times.

Professor Tang Jiang and also his team have actually proposed a method of rapid thermal evaporation (RTE) to get premium CdSe thin films as well as have actually created CdSe thin-film solar cells. This research, entitled Rapid thermal evaporation for cadmium selenide thin-film solar cells, was released in Frontiers of Optoelectronics on Dec. 6, 2021.

In this research study, the RTE was utilized to deposit CdSe thin films, which show high crystal quality with big grain size and liked crystal orientation. At the same time, the sharp absorption edge at 720 nm suggests CdSe thin films with a direct bandgap of 1.72 eV. The solid photoluminescence with complete width at fifty percent maximum of 23 nm discloses the CdSe thin films with fairly few issues. Based upon the premium CdSe thin films, an ideal electron transport layer (ETL) and also hole transport layer (HTL) were presented to build CdSe solar cells. Finally, an efficiency of 1.88% was attained deliberately an optimal arrangement of FTO/ZnO/CdS/ CdSe/PEDOT/CuI.

This study developed, for the first time, a RTE method to deposit CdSe thin films and offered a systematical characterization of the optoelectric homes. Also, it showed general rules for tool style and optimization for CdSe solar cells. It additionally mentioned the advantages of CdSe thin film and also its solar cells. In the future, CdSe solar cells are of high potential in Si-based tandem applications, and also this deserves further study.