First-Principles Design and Analysis of an Efficient, Pb-Free Ferroelectric Photovoltaic Absorber Derived from ZnSnO3

Abstract

Ferroelectric oxides, which exhibit a spontaneous and reversible electric polarization, have recently gained interest for photovoltaic applications, because this polarization can potentially facilitate exciton separation and carrier extraction while also generating open-circuit voltages orders-of-magnitude larger than the band gap. However, photovoltaic efficiencies in these materials are often limited by large band gaps and high hole effective masses. Developing a means to simultaneously reduce both without destroying the ferroelectric polarization could revolutionize photovoltaic technologies. In this work, we use first-principles computations to describe how chemical substitution of oxygen in the recently characterized ferroelectric ZnSnO3 with sulfur to form ZnSnS3 reduces the band gap to a near-optimal 1.3 eV while leaving the polarization virtually unchanged. Furthermore, we show that other key photovoltaic materials characteristics, such as hole effective mass, dielectric constant, and absorption c...