Characterization of basic physical properties of Sb₂Se₃ and its relevance for photovoltaics

Abstract

Antimony selenide (Sb₂Se₃) is a promising absorber material for thin film photovoltaics because of its attractive material, optical and electrical properties. In recent years, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of Sb₂Se₃ thin film solar cells has gradually enhanced to 5.6%. In this article, we systematically studied the basic physical properties of Sb₂Se₃ such as dielectric constant, anisotropic mobility, carrier lifetime, diffusion length, defect depth, defect density and optical band tail states. We believe such a comprehensive characterization of the basic physical properties of Sb₂Se₃ lays a solid foundation for further optimization of solar device performance.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

antimony selenide (Sb₂Se₃) / mobility / lifetime / diffusion length / defects

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Chao Chen received the B.S. degree in School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) China in 2014. Now, he is studying for a doctor's degree in Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO) at HUST. He majors in photovoltaics and photodetector.

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Jiang Tang received his Bachelor’s degree from University of Science and Technology of China at 2003, and his Ph.D. degree in Material Science and Engineering from University of Toronto at 2010. He spent one year and half as a postdoctoral researcher at IBM T. J. Watson research center and then joined in Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology as a professor in 2012. His group focuses on antimony selenide (Sb₂Se₃) thin film solar cells, halide perovskites nanocrystals for light emitting and single crystals for X- and γ-ray detection. He has published 70+ papers including Nat. Mater., Nat. Photonics with 3500 citations. He is the receiver of the “1000 Young Talents” and the National Natural Science Funds for Outstanding Young Scholar.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFA0204000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 61322401 and 91433105), the Special Fund for Strategic New Development of Shenzhen, China (No. JCYJ20160414102210144) and “National 1000 Young Talents” project. Professor Shiyou Chen at East China Normal University is acknowledged for helpful discussions. The authors would like to thank the Analytical and Testing Center of HUST and the Center for Nanoscale Characterization and Devices of WNLO for the characterization support.

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