Controlled Sputtering Pressure on High-Quality Sb(2)Se(3) Thin Film for Substrate Configurated Solar Cells

Magnetron sputtering has become an effective method in Sb(2)Se(3) thin film photovoltaic. Research found that post-selenization treatments are essential to produce stoichiometric thin films with desired crystallinity and orientation for the sputtered Sb(2)Se(3). However, the influence of the sputtering process on Sb(2)Se(3) device performance has rarely been explored. In this work, the working pressure effect was thoroughly studied for the sputtered Sb(2)Se(3) thin film solar cells. High-quality Sb(2)Se(3) thin film was obtained when a bilayer structure was applied by sputtering the film at a high (1.5 Pa) and a low working pressure (1.0 Pa) subsequently. Such bilayer structure was found to be beneficial for both crystallization and preferred orientation of the Sb(2)Se(3) thin film. Lastly, an interesting power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.5% was obtained for the champion device.