Post-Annealing Treatment on Hydrothermally Grown Antimony Sulfoselenide Thin Films for Efficient Solar Cells

Herein, antimony sulfoselenide (Sb-2(S, Se)(3)) thin-film solar cells are fabricated by a hydrothermal method followed by a post-deposition annealing process at different temperatures and the impact of the annealing temperature on the morphological, structural, optoelectronic, and defect properties of the hydrothermally grown Sb-2(S, Se)(3) films is investigated. It is found that a proper annealing temperature leads to high-quality Sb-2(S, Se)(3) films with large crystal grains, high crystallinity, preferred crystal orientation, smooth and uniform morphology, and reduced defect density. These results show that suppressing deep-level defects is crucial to enhance solar cell performance. After optimizing the annealing process, Sb-2(S, Se)(3) solar cells with an improved power conversion efficiency 2.04 to 8.48% are obtained.

Automated summary

In this study, antimony sulfoselenide (Sb-2(S, Se)(3)) thin-film solar cells were fabricated using a hydrothermal method and post-deposition annealing at different temperatures. The impact of annealing temperature on the morphological, structural, optoelectronic, and defect properties of the hydrothermally grown Sb-2(S, Se)(3) films was investigated. The results showed that an appropriate annealing temperature led to high-quality Sb-2(S, Se)(3) films with desirable characteristics and reduced defect density, resulting in improved power conversion efficiency of the Sb-2(S, Se)(3) solar cells.