Efficient In Situ Sulfuration Process in Hydrothermally Deposited Sb2S3 Absorber Layers

Sulfuration plays a decisive role in enhancing crystal growth and passivate defects in the fabrication of high-efficiency metal-sulfide solar cells. However, the traditional sulfuration process always suffers from high-price professional equipment, tedious processes, low activity of S, or high toxicity of H2S. Here, we develop a desired in situ sulfuration by introducing tartaric acid additive into the hydrothermal deposition process of Sb2S3. Tartaric acid, sodium thiosulfate, and potassium antimony tartaric can form Sb2Sx-contained (x > 3) as-prepared films. Encouragingly, the annealing becomes an inspiring in situ sulfuration process, which can obtain a more compact absorber layer. In addition, the crystallinity and defect property of the Sb2S3 film are also improved significantly. Finally, we achieve a high-performance Sb2S3 solar cell with a power conversion efficiency of 6.31%, which shows an encouraging enhancement of similar to 15% compared with the traditional hydrothermal process. This study provides an innovative way to prepare high-efficiency Sb2S3 solar cells and provides a desirable guide to realize the in situ sulfuration process.

Automated summary

In this study, a new in situ sulfuration method was developed to prepare high-efficiency Sb2S3 solar cells by introducing tartaric acid additive into the hydrothermal deposition process. This method not only simplifies the sulfuration process, but also improves the crystallinity and defect property of the film.