Abstract
Kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) has attracted attention as an earth-abundant alternative to commercially successful CIGS solar cells. CZTS exhibits decent optoelectrical properties while having excellent stability on top of being an earth-abundant, low-cost and non-toxic material. Therefore, in recent years, there has been a significant research effort to develop CZTS-based devices. The efficiency of CZTS solar cells reached 12.6% in 2013, and this was a remarkable achievement at the time. However, the efficiency of these devices has been stagnant since then while emerging technologies, most notably perovskite solar cells, keep breaking record after record. Currently, CZTS research focuses on discovering the secrets of material properties that hinder the efficiency of CZTS solar cells while branching out to develop alternative applications for this material. In this review, we summarize the interesting properties of CZTS as well as its promising applications, which include thin-film solar cells, charge-transfer layers in perovskite solar cells, and photoelectrochemical water splitting while briefly commenting on its other possible applications.
Highlights
Parallel to increasing public concerns about environmental issues and climate change, investments and research activities related to renewable energy have grown substantially in the past decade
This is the result of several challenges; CdTe consists of toxic elements and CIGS requires rare-earth elements. perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which have rapidly improved in efficiency from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.7% in 2016, are the front runners for new generation PV devices [7,8]; they suffer from stability issues which hinder their commercial potential
Important developments and progress have been made in the past few years in terms of understanding the material properties as well as developing new strategies to reach higher performances
Summary
Parallel to increasing public concerns about environmental issues and climate change, investments and research activities related to renewable energy have grown substantially in the past decade. Thin-film PV technology is a promising, low-cost alternative to c-Si solar cells These devices are based on direct bandgap semiconductors with high absorption coefficients, which require relatively thin absorber layers and can be deposited on light, flexible substrates, making them compatible with roll-to-roll production techniques. As a result, these devices may offer significant cost advantages over conventional silicon cells. In theory, thin-film devices have many advantages over c-Si solar cells, and a handful of thin-film technologies have already reached efficiencies of over 20% (CdTe (22.1%), CIGS (23.4%), perovskite (25.2%)) [5], only ≈ 5% of global PV production consists of thin-film devices [6] This is the result of several challenges; CdTe consists of toxic elements and CIGS requires rare-earth elements. This review summarizes the interesting properties of CZTS as well as giving brief status updates on its various applications
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