Atomic layer deposition of amorphous antimony sulfide (a-Sb2S3) is demonstrated with an alternating exposure of tris(dimethylamino)antimony (TDMASb) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) at 150 °C in a custom-built viscous flow reactor. Growth mechanism and deposition chemistry are investigated by in situ quartz crystal microbalance and in situ Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Reaction hypothesis facilitating the binary reaction is established by quantum mechanical density functional theory calculations that essentially support the experimental findings. The developed material is used as a photon harvester in solar cells under extremely thin absorber configuration, with TiO2 and Spiro-OMeTAD as electron and hole transporting layers, respectively. Investigation of charge injection properties with surface photovoltage spectroscopy reveals low but non-negligible density of interfacial (sensitizer/TiO2) electronic defects. The conventional viscous flow reactor configuration is modified to showerhead-type reactor configuration to achieve better uniformity and conformality of a-Sb2S3 on highly porous TiO2 scaffolds. a-Sb2S3 device performance is optimized to achieve the highest power conversion efficiencies of 0.5% while annealed crystalline c-Sb2S3 device reaches power conversion efficiencies of 1.9% under 1 sun illumination.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
March 25 2020
Atomic layer deposition of amorphous antimony sulfide (a-Sb2S3) as semiconductor sensitizer in extremely thin absorber solar cell
Special Collection:
Special Topic Collection on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)
Neha Mahuli;
Neha Mahuli
1
Centre for Research in Nanotechnology and Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
, Powai, 400 076 Mumbai, India
Search for other works by this author on:
Debabrata Halder;
Debabrata Halder
2
School of Chemical Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science
, 2A & 2B, Raja S. C. Mullick Road, 700 032 Kolkata, India
Search for other works by this author on:
Ankan Paul;
Ankan Paul
2
School of Chemical Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science
, 2A & 2B, Raja S. C. Mullick Road, 700 032 Kolkata, India
Search for other works by this author on:
Shaibal K. Sarkar
Shaibal K. Sarkar
a)
3
Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
, Powai, 400 076 Mumbai, India
Search for other works by this author on:
a)
Electronic mail: shaibal.sarkar@iitb.ac.in
Note: This paper is part of the 2020 Special Topic Collection on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 38, 032407 (2020)
Article history
Received:
January 26 2020
Accepted:
March 06 2020
Citation
Neha Mahuli, Debabrata Halder, Ankan Paul, Shaibal K. Sarkar; Atomic layer deposition of amorphous antimony sulfide (a-Sb2S3) as semiconductor sensitizer in extremely thin absorber solar cell. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 1 May 2020; 38 (3): 032407. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0000031
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Sign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionPay-Per-View Access
$40.00