Fabrication and characterization of ZnO/Se1-xTex solar cells

Jiajia Zheng; Liuchong Fu; Yuming He; Kanghua Li; Yue Lu; Jiayou Xue; Yuxuan Liu; Chong Dong; Chao Chen; Jiang Tang

doi:10.1007/s12200-022-00040-5

Fabrication and characterization of ZnO/Se_1-xTe_x solar cells

Front Optoelectron. 2022 Sep 8;15(1):36. doi: 10.1007/s12200-022-00040-5.

Authors

Jiajia Zheng^{1

2}, Liuchong Fu¹, Yuming He¹, Kanghua Li¹, Yue Lu^{1

2}, Jiayou Xue^{1

2}, Yuxuan Liu¹, Chong Dong¹, Chao Chen³, Jiang Tang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO) and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
² China-EU Institute for Clean and Renewable Energy (ICARE), Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
³ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO) and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China. cchen@mail.hust.edu.cn.

Abstract

Selenium (Se) element is a promising light-harvesting material for solar cells because of the large absorption coefficient and prominent photoconductivity. However, the efficiency of Se solar cells has been stagnated for a long time owing to the suboptimal bandgap (> 1.8 eV) and the lack of a proper electron transport layer. In this work, we tune the bandgap of the absorber to the optimal value of Shockley-Queisser limit (1.36 eV) by alloying 30% Te with 70% Se. Simultaneously, ZnO electron transport layer is selected because of the proper band alignment, and the mild reaction at ZnO/Se_0.7Te_0.3 interface guarantees a good-quality heterojunction. Finally, a superior efficiency of 1.85% is achieved on ZnO/Se_0.7Te_0.3 solar cells.

Keywords: Recombination mechanism; Se1−xTex alloy; Solar cells; ZnO electron transport layer.