The Impact of Cesium and Antimony Alloying on the Photovoltaic Properties of Silver Bismuth Iodide Compounds

Abstract

Silver bismuth iodide (SBI) rudorffites have received a lot of attention in photovoltaic applications because of their high stability and low toxic properties. Herein, the partial substitution of silver (Ag) with cesium (Cs) and also bismuth (Bi) with antimony (Sb) is investigated. According to the obtained results, adding Sb and Cs to the SBI compounds changes the crystallinity, creates the denser films with an increase in grain size of the nanoparticles, shifts the absorption edges to a higher wavelength, and decreases the bandgap energy values. All these changes in the physical properties of SBI layers lead to an improvement in the photovoltaic performance of the solar cells. A power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar cells increases from 0.43% in the pure SBI‐based films to 0.73% and 1.06% in the presence of Cs and Sb, respectively. Also, the stability of all devices is evaluated. It is observed that after 30 days, all devices preserve about 90% of their efficiency.