Structural, optoelectronic, optical coating and thermoelectric properties of the chalcogenides type Kesterite Ag2CdSnX4 (with X=S, Se): A computational insight

To find a seemly solution to the problems of efficiency dependency of the hybrid PV/TE devices, on important factors like “high-absorbance with high-ZT materials” and improving the performance of existing devices, are essential research topics nowadays. In this regard, we report here optical coating, and thermoelectric features of the kesterite-structured Ag2CdSnS4 and Ag2CdSnSe4 compounds. These investigations are performed at the level of “full-potential linearized augmented plane wave plus local orbital method, FP-L(APW + lo)” framed within the “density functional theory (DFT)” method comprised with relativistic effects. Our study of the optical coating shows that both the investigated materials have a good level of absorbance (A), approximately 80% in the visible part of the spectra. Further, we found that the magnitude of reflectance (R) of the Ag2CdSnX4 (X = S, Se) thin films increase with increasing film thickness, while the response of the transmittance (T) spectra is reverse to it. These results are corroborated by the study of the transport properties by employing the Boltztrap code, and correspondingly electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, electronic thermal conductivity as well as the figure of merit parameters were evaluated and analyzed as a function of the chemical potential for both investigated compounds at five values of the temperatures. Hence our obtained results show that both the investigated semiconductor materials exhibit strong potential for the application of hybrid PV/TE systems.