Search

• We present preparation of SnS thin films through thermal evaporation route and characterize phase composition of these films. • A single phase and alternative light absorber SnS films were fabricated at the substrate temperature of 250 °C. • Efficient planar SnS hybrid solar cells were constructed using this method. Tin sulfide (SnS) is a promising absorber material for photovoltaic cells, because of its optimum band gap, strong optical absorption, simple phase composition, earth-abundant and nontoxic constituents. However, this material is largely unexploited to date with only a handful of studies reporting SnS for photovoltaic application. We present systematic preparation of SnS thin films through thermal evaporation route and characterize phase composition of these films. We have observed that the films grown at the substrate temperature of 250 °C exhibit a single SnS phase, which could be alternative light absorber materials for photovoltaic devices fabrication. Hence, a solar conversion efficiency of 1.47% was obtained at standard one sun illumination using a planar device consisting of FTO/TiO 2 /SnS/P3HT/Au. The present findings offer novel directions for achieving high-efficiency solid-state solar cells by hybridization of inorganic-organic light harvesters and hole transporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perovskite solar cells have developed rapidly in recent years as the third generation solar cells. In spite of the great improvement achieved, there still exist some issues such as undesired hysteresis and indispensable high temperature process. In this work, bulk heterojunction perovskite-phenyl-C 61 -butyric acid methyl ester solar cells have been prepared to diminish hysteresis using a facile two step spin-coating method. Furthermore, high quality tin oxide films are fabricated using pulse laser deposition technique at room temperature without any annealing procedure. The as fabricated tin oxide film is successfully applied in bulk heterojunction perovskite solar cells as a hole blocking layer. Bulk heterojunction devices based on room temperature tin oxide exhibit almost hysteresis-free characteristics with power conversion efficiency of 17.29% and 14.0% on rigid and flexible substrates, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]