Emon E I, Islam A M, Sobayel M K, Islam S, Akhtaruzzaman Md, Amin N, Ahmed A, Rashid M J
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh.
Solar Energy Research Institute, The National University of Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Malaysia.
Heliyon. 2023 Mar 11;9(3):e14438. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14438. eCollection 2023 Mar.
Transition metal di-chalcogenides (TMCDs)-Tungsten disulfide (WS) exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties such as suitable bandgap, high absorption coefficient, good conductivity, high carrier mobility, etc. to be used as a photovoltaic material for thin-film solar cells. In the present work, we have replaced the traditional buffer CdS and ITO/ZnO window layer in CdTe solar cells with the non-toxic, earth-abundant WS buffer and SnO window layer, respectively. The SCAPS-1D solar simulator is used to investigate the potentiality of WS as buffer material in CdTe solar cells. This numerical study provides a comparison of the performances between the proposed structure: SnO/WS/CdTe/Au and the baseline structure: ITO/ZnO/CdS/CdTe/Au. The impacts of the charge carrier generation rate, spectral response, current-voltage characteristics, bulk defect density, defect density at buffer/absorber interface, operating temperature, and capacitance-voltage characteristics on the solar cell performance parameters have also been analyzed. The tolerance level of defect density in WS bulk and WS/CdTe interface are found to be 10 cm and 10 cm, respectively. The temperature study reveals the poor structural robustness and thermal stability of the proposed cell. The conversion efficiency of the proposed cell has found to be 20.55% at the optimized device structure. Nevertheles, these findings may provide an insight to fabricate viable, environment friendly, and inexpensive CdTe thin-film solar cells.
过渡金属二硫属化物（TMCDs）——二硫化钨（WS）具有优异的光电性能，如合适的带隙、高吸收系数、良好的导电性、高载流子迁移率等，可作为薄膜太阳能电池的光伏材料。在本工作中，我们分别用无毒且储量丰富的WS缓冲层和SnO窗口层替代了碲化镉太阳能电池中的传统缓冲层硫化镉（CdS）和氧化铟锡/氧化锌（ITO/ZnO）窗口层。利用SCAPS - 1D太阳能模拟器研究WS作为碲化镉太阳能电池缓冲材料的潜力。该数值研究比较了所提出的结构：SnO/WS/CdTe/Au与基线结构：ITO/ZnO/CdS/CdTe/Au之间的性能。还分析了载流子产生率、光谱响应、电流 - 电压特性、体缺陷密度、缓冲层/吸收层界面处的缺陷密度、工作温度以及电容 - 电压特性对太阳能电池性能参数的影响。发现WS体和WS/CdTe界面处缺陷密度的容忍水平分别为10¹⁷ cm⁻³ 和10¹⁸ cm⁻³ 。温度研究表明所提出的电池结构稳健性和热稳定性较差。在所优化的器件结构下，所提出电池的转换效率为20.55%。尽管如此，这些发现可能为制造可行、环境友好且廉价的碲化镉薄膜太阳能电池提供思路。
