Investigations on copper zinc sulphide thin films as absorber or window layer in solar cells

Abstract

Population explosion and technological advancements boost world s newlineenergy consumption day by day. Solar energy, hydropower and wind are the newlinemajor renewable energy sources that meet the daily energy demands newlineglobally. Though (crystalline) silicon solar cells dominates in photovoltaic newline(PV) markets, the high cost of manufacturing, installation and difficulty in newlinedisposal are the major challenges in silicon solar technologies. This newlinemotivates people to explore new cost effective and environment friendly newlinetechnologies for solar cell fabrication. Considering the material for thin film newlinesolar cells, cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium diselenide newline(CIGS) and copper zinc tin sulphide (CZTS) are reported to have highest newlineefficiencies. Out of which Cd and Te in cadmium telluride is toxic, In and Ga newlinein CIGS cells are costly. Here comes the significance of the ternary newlinesemiconducting material copper zinc sulfide (CZS). The material possess newlineexcellent properties that can be tailored to suit for solar cell application. newlineCZS is a novel material and this thesis reports on the detailed newlineanalysis of this material under different conditions of deposition. The newlinematerial is environment friendly, earth abundant, cost effective and can be newlinesynthesized in thin film form through automated chemical spray pyrolysis newline(CSP) technique, which is non vacuum technique of deposition. Device newlinefabrication is also reported in the thesis using CZS and the performance newlineparameters are analyzed. newline