journal article·2026-07Open access

Bonding‐Enabled Interfacial Reconstruction at Buried Interface for High‐Efficiency Sb 2 Se 3 Solar Cells

Shuwei Sheng, Junjie Yang, Jianyu Li, Zichen Ruan, Bo Che, Xiaoqi Peng, Qi Zhao, Zhilin Chen, Rongfeng Tang, Shangfeng Yang, Tao Chen

Small· Volume 22· Issue 39

Abstract

ABSTRACT Antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) has attracted intense attention as one of the most promising photovoltaic materials, owing to its outstanding optoelectronic properties and thermal and chemical stability. However, the solar cells based on Sb 2 Se 3 suffer from inferior interfacial contact and severe recombination loss at the buried interface, which limits the efficiency improvement of the device. To overcome these limitations, here we develop an acid‐activated interfacial reconstruction strategy to improve the quality of the buried CdS/Sb 2 Se 3 interface. We found that HCl post‐treatment on the CdS film can effectively enhance interfacial uniformity and reduce residual SO 4 2− species on the (100) facet of CdS. These surface characteristics facilitate the formation of Sb‐S bonding at the CdS/Sb 2 Se 3 interface, thereby promoting bonding‐mediated oriented growth of Sb 2 Se 3 . Consequently, the deposited Sb 2 Se 3 exhibits a preferred [hk1] orientation and mitigated Se vacancy defects, leading to enhanced carrier transport efficiency and suppressed non‐radiative recombination loss in the device. Ultimately, we achieved a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.74% in Sb 2 Se 3 superstrate solar cells fabricated via thermal evaporation (TE). This approach establishes a novel paradigm for interfacial engineering, where the in situ activation of CdS surfaces enhances interfacial properties and facilitates chemical bonding during subsequent deposition.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Chalcogenide Semiconductor Thin Films · Phase-change materials and chalcogenides · Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences At the Microscale School of Chemistry and Materials Science Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion Materials Chinese Academy of Sciences University of Science and Technology of China Hefei Anhui China

School of Microelectronics Hefei University of Technology Hefei P. R. China

Deep Space Exploration Laboratory Hefei China

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China · Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

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