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Significant Efficiency Enhancement in Ultrathin CZTS Solar Cells by Combining Al Plasmonic Nanostructures Array and Antireflective Coatings

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Abstract

In the few past years, the economic and eco-friendly Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) solar cells have caught lots of attentions. However, due to rather poor efficiency, identifying deficiencies and making improvements is necessary. In the present study, the performance improvement of ultrathin CZTS solar cells was achieved through (1) incorporation of anti-reflective coating (ARC) on the surface of cell and (2) embedding Al plasmonic nanostructures with different radius, periods, and vertical positions in the absorber layer. Various thicknesses of CZTS absorber layer were simulated optically and electrically using FDTD and DEVICE solver of Lumerical software. The reference solar cell consists of a 1.5-nm-thick CZTS absorber and exhibit an efficiency of up to 5.67%, short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 18.48 mA cm−2 and open circuit voltage of 0.58 V. Result showed a remarkable performance enhancement of the solar cell in spite of a very thin absorber layer. For a 500-μm-thick CZTS solar cell with the assistance of ARC and embedding Al plasmonic nanostructures, the efficiency is increased to 7.45% due to an increase in Jsc to 22.62 mA cm−2 with an open circuit voltage of 0.62 V.

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Data Availability

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Code Availability

The authors confirm that the codes used for this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Takestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Takestan, Iran

    Mina Mirzaei & Javad Hasanzadeh

  2. Nano Research Lab, Lahijan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran

    Ali Abdolahzadeh Ziabari

Authors
  1. Mina Mirzaei
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  2. Javad Hasanzadeh
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  3. Ali Abdolahzadeh Ziabari
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Contributions

Mina Mirzaei: performed the numerical simulations and collected the data. Javad Hasanzadeh: provided the draft of manuscript and figures. Ali Abdolahzadeh Ziabari: comments and discussions and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Javad Hasanzadeh.

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Mirzaei, M., Hasanzadeh, J. & Abdolahzadeh Ziabari, A. Significant Efficiency Enhancement in Ultrathin CZTS Solar Cells by Combining Al Plasmonic Nanostructures Array and Antireflective Coatings. Plasmonics 16, 1375–1390 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-021-01379-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-021-01379-9

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