Journal
ACS ENERGY LETTERS
Volume 4, Issue 9, Pages 2137-2143Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.9b01619
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Funding
- LEAP Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center - U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC0001059]
- ONR [N00014-18-1-2102]
- Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF) [ECCS-1542205]
- MRSEC program [NSF DMR-1720139]
- International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN)
- Keck Foundation
- State of Illinois, through the IIN
- Israeli Ministry of Energy
- EPIC facility of Northwestern University's NUANCE Center
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In this Letter, we report the alloying of the high band-gap photovoltaic elemental absorber selenium with the isomorphic low-band-gap semiconductor tellurium to tune the band gap energy of Se1-xTex to the optimal value for photovoltaic absorber. Photovoltaic devices based on crystalline Se1-xTex alloys are promising candidates for extremely cheap and highly scalable solar cells, offering simple low-temperature fabrication and intrinsic stability. We explore the electro-optical properties kof Se1-xTex alloys and show that the tellurium red shifts the band gap in a nonlinear manner, faster than expected, due to significantly nonlinear change of the conduction band energy, allowing them to easily reach the desired band gap of 1.2-1.4 eV. On the basis of these results, we rationally design and demonstrate the fabrication of simple Se1-xTex photovoltaic devices, showing significantly improved current density in comparison to pure selenium. Furthermore, we identify and analyze the main factors limiting the device efficiency and suggest a few approaches for future improvements of such photovoltaic devices.
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