Modification of back electrode with WO3 layer and its effect on Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4-based solar cells

In the present work, we designed and prepared Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)(4) (CZTSSe)-based solar cells with a new structure of Al/ITO/ZnO/CdS/CZTSSe/WO3/Mo/SLG (S1-5) by depositing about 5-nm-thick WO3 layer with monoclinic structure on the back electrode Mo/SLG of solar cells with the convention structure of Al/ITO/ZnO/CdS/CZTSSe/Mo/SLG (S2), with the aim of improving the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of CZTSSe-based solar cells. It is found that the average open circuit voltage (V-oc) increases from 346.7 mV of the S2 cells to 400.9 mV of the S1-5 cells, the average short circuit current density j(sc)) from 26.4 mA/cm(2) to 32.1 mA/cm(2) and the filling factor (FF) from 33.8 to 40.0 by addition of the WO3 layer, which results in that the average PCE increases from 3.10% of the S2 cells to 5.14% of the S15 cells. The average increasing percent of the PCE is 65.8%. The increase in V-oc,j(sc) and FF of the S1-5 cells compared to the S2 cells is attributed to that the WO3 layer prevent the Se coming from Se ambient and CZTSSe to react with the Mo to form MoSe2 and other second phases, which makes the shunt resistance (R-sh) of the S1-5 increase and the series resistance (R-S) and reverse saturation current density (Jo) decrease compared to the S2 cells. The decreased Jo is main factor of improvement of the PCE. A mechanism of influence of the R-sh, R-S and Jo on the PCE is also revealed. Our result demonstrates that addition of the WO3 layer with a reasonable thickness can be a promising technical route of improving the PCE of the CZTSSe-based solar cell. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.