Device modeling and investigation of Sb-based low-cost heterojunction solar cells using SCAPS-1D

Abstract

Antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) and antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) solar cells are considered as emerging photovoltaic devices due to their earth abundance, low cost, non-toxic property and high optical absorption. Also, the buffer layer for the solar cells should be non-toxic. Hence, the need to have a Cd-free buffer layer is a growing interest among the researchers. In this study, we modeled Mo/Sb2S3/TiO2/FTO and Mo/Sb2Se3/TiO2/FTO solar cells and theoretically calculated the effect of different device parameters on the properties of solar cells by SCAPS-1D (Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator) software. By optimizing different properties of Sb2S3 and Sb2Se3likethickness, hole mobility, recombination defect density and their interface, a solar cell efficiency beyond 8 % could be achieved. The optimized thicknesses for Sb2Se3 and Sb2S3absorberswere found to be 900 nm and 300 nm, respectively. A maximum efficiency of 8.67 % and 9.4 % were obtained for Sb2S3 and Sb2Se3 based solar cells, respectively after optimizing all the parameters. These results obtained by simulation study gives us useful insights about the designing and fabrication of Sb2S3 and Sb2Se3 based solar cells.