Exploring the opportunity of using graphene as the transparent conducting layer in CZTS-based thin film solar cells

Abstract

This work explores the opportunity of the use of graphene as the transparent conducting (TC) layer instead of conventional transparent conducting oxide (TCO) such as indium tin oxide (ITO) in the CZTS based solar cells which is recently evolved as one of the most promising thin film solar cells. It has been known that graphene has higher transmittance and conductance and is cheaper than the widely used ITO. Based on the MATLAB simulations, this work proves that graphene can be used as the better alternative than ITO as the transparent conducting layer. Moreover, simulations show that the use of graphene can reduce the amount of CZTS material and hence, reduce the cost of solar cell as optimum absorber width based on maximum possible conversion efficiency is found less for the graphene-TCL based solar cells.