SnS Thin Film Solar Cells: Perspectives and Limitations
Source abstract
Abstract
Thin film solar cells have reached commercial maturity and extraordinarily high efficiency that make them competitive even with the cheaper Chinese crystalline silicon modules. However, some issues (connected with presence of toxic and/or rare elements) are still limiting their market diffusion. For this reason new thin film materials, such as Cu2ZnSnS4 or SnS, have been introduced so that expensive In and Te, and toxic elements Se and Cd, are substituted, respectively, in CuInGaSe2 and CdTe. To overcome the abundance limitation of Te and In, in recent times new thin film materials, such as Cu2ZnSnS4 or SnS, have been investigated. In this paper we analyze the limitations of SnS deposition in terms of reproducibility and reliability. SnS deposited by thermal evaporation is analyzed by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The raw material is also analyzed and a different composition is observed according to the different number of evaporation (runs). The sulfur loss represents one of the major challenges of SnS solar cell technology.
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Research context
OpenAlex topics: Chalcogenide Semiconductor Thin Films · Quantum Dots Synthesis And Properties · Copper-based nanomaterials and applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Laboratory for Applied Physics (LAPS), Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy
Solid State Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology; University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy
Raman Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy
Funding
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto · Università di Verona, Joint Project
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