Characteristics and optimization of ZnO/CdS/CZTS photovoltaic solar cell

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Materials science & processing, 2018-02, Vol.124 (2), p.1-7, Article 199
• Main Authors: Gueddim, A., Bouarissa, N., Naas, A., Daoudi, F., Messikine, N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied physics; Buffer layers; Cadmium sulfide; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Condensed Matter Physics; Copper zinc tin sulfide; Efficiency; Energy conversion efficiency; Energy gap; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials science; Nanotechnology; Optical and Electronic Materials; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Processes; Solar Energy Materials and Applications; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thickness; Thin Films; Zinc oxide
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-018-1626-1

In the present contribution a ZnO/CdS/CZTS structure with new thicknesses of the different layers has been proposed using solar cell capacitance simulator. The objective of this study is the improvement of the device efficiency while varying the thickness of the various layers and the CZTS system energy band-gap. Our results showed that cells with optimal values of thicknesses of 0.1, 0.02 and 1 µm for ZnO window layer, CdS buffer layer and CZTS absorber layer, respectively give conversion efficiency of 23.56%. Furthermore, the higher performance of these cells is obtained for a CZTS band-gap energy of about 1.45 eV. The obtained conversion efficiency is comparable to those previously reported in the literature.