Modeling and Simulation of CZTS Thin-Film Solar Cell for Efficiency Enhancement

• Published in: Journal of electronic materials 2022-05, Vol.51 (5), p.2228-2235
• Main Authors: Paul, Rabin, Vallisree, S., Lenka, T. R., Talukdar, F. A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absorptivity; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Circuits; Copper indium gallium selenides; Copper zinc tin sulfide; Current density; Efficiency; Electrical properties; Electronics and Microelectronics; Instrumentation; Magnesium; Materials Science; Open circuit voltage; Optical and Electronic Materials; Original Research Article; Photovoltaic cells; Solar cells; Solid State Physics; Thickness; Thin films; Zinc oxide
• ISSN: 0361-5235; 1543-186X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11664-022-09449-2

CZTS solar cells have been utilized as a replacement for CIGS and CdTe solar cells in thin-film technology. With the better absorption coefficient of this material, it has achieved efficiency higher than 13%. In this work, the performance of a CZTS thin-film solar cell (TFSC) is analyzed by replacing intrinsic ZnO (i-ZnO) with Mg-doped ZnO as window layer material. i-ZnO has good optical and electrical characteristics, but the optical, electrical, and morphological characteristics of Mg-doped ZnO are more promising for its application as window layer material in CZTS thin-film solar cells. The electrical properties of the solar cell are analyzed in the Silvaco TCAD under AM 1.5G illumination. A sharp increase in the performance of the solar cell is observed. Because of the higher transmittance of Mg-doped ZnO, the current density increases. With varying thickness of the window layer and absorber layer, the results in this work reveal maximum efficiency of 19.57%. Variations in the current density ( J sc ), open-circuit voltage ( V oc ), and fill factor (FF %) are also observed. The proposed structure of the thin-film CZTS solar cell shows good performance by enhancing its efficiency.