Sara Engberg*,
Stela Canulescu and
Jørgen Schou
DTU Fotonik, Technical University of Denmark, Building 130, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark. E-mail: sleen@fotonik.dtu.dk; Tel: +45 46774585
First published on 14th February 2018
The effect of adding LiCl, NaCl, and KCl to Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) nanoparticle thin-film samples annealed in a nitrogen and sulfur atmosphere is reported. We demonstrate that the organic ligand-free nanoparticles previously developed can be used to produce an absorber layer of high quality. The films were Zn-rich and Cu-poor, and no secondary phases except ZnS could be detected within the detection limit of the characterization tools used. Potassium was the most effective alkali metal to enhance grain growth, and resulted in films with a high photoluminescence signal and an optical band gap of 1.43 eV. The alkali metals were introduced in the form of chloride salts, and a significant amount of Cl was detected in the final films, but could be removed in a quick water rinse.
For solution-processed CZTS, the current record efficiency for a nanoparticle solar cell is 4.8%,3 while devices made from molecular/precursor inks approach 6%.4 For the molecular precursor route, the synthesis step is circumvented, which should favor this method. It is, however, still important to develop the nanoparticle approach, as it allows a higher concentration of CZTS in the ink, and therefore facilitates different deposition techniques. As it is yet unknown which method will work best for future upscaling it is important to have different technologies.
One challenge for the nanoparticle approach is to obtain uniform grain growth during the annealing step.3 CZTS nanoparticles are typically synthesized with long hydrocarbons as ligands/surfactants, e.g. oleylamine (OLA). After annealing thin films consisting of these particles, the formation of large grains on the surface can be observed, while a fine-grain layer is formed at the bottom interface.3,5,6 This fine-grained material contains carbon, and its effect on the solar cell is not known. Even with ligands consisting of shorter hydrocarbon chains,6 the annealed CZTS nanoparticle film will remain porous. Therefore, it seems that solid state material diffusion which promotes grain growth is very slow under the specific annealing conditions.
Grain growth in the form of sintering is desired as it can result in a dense film. In sintering particles are merged at a temperature below the melting point, and it occurs to minimize the surface area and thus the surface energy of a colloidal system.7,8 The rate of sintering can be increased by hot pressing, impurity doping to enhance grain boundary diffusion, or incorporating an element that becomes a liquid phase at elevated temperature, i.e. liquid phase reactive sintering.7,8
For solution-processed CZTS, both hot-pressing9 and including a dopant have been attempted with promising film morphologies. Typically, the alkali metals Na and K are used, but promising results have also been achieved for Li and Sb. The incorporation of these elements has been done through a selection of different processes. For precursor CZTS films, the dopants can be incorporated directly in the ink, which has resulted in some of the highest efficiencies to date when using Sb(OAc)3 and NaCl.4 A common way to include these elements in nanoparticle films is by soaking the film in a sodium salt solution,5 or depositing a thin NaF layer on top of the absorber before annealing, which adds an extra vacuum-deposition step;3 for both methods, the beneficial effects of the incorporated elements is typically restricted to the close proximity of the surface, and limited by its diffusion within the film.10 To obtain a more uniform distribution of incorporated dopants, the surface of the nanoparticles can be functionalized with e.g. SbCl3,11 or CF3COONa.10
We have previously reported a one-step synthesis of organic ligand-free nanoparticles, which minimizes the amount of organic material in the film, allows for using solvents like water and ethanol, and furthermore makes it possible to directly dissolve controllable amounts of various chloride salts in the ink.12,13 In this paper we investigate the effect of LiCl, NaCl, and KCl on the structural evolution and opto-electronic properties of these thin films.
Nanoparticle inks were prepared with a concentration of 30 mg ml−1 in ethanol and sonicated for more than 1 h. Alkali elements were added in the form of chloride salts: lithium chloride (Sigma Aldrich, 99.99+%, LiCl), sodium chloride (Sigma Aldrich, 99+%, NaCl), and potassium chloride (Sigma Aldrich, 99.999%, KCl). An amount of approximately 10 wt% of each salt was dissolved in DI water (for a final solvent ratio of 1:10 water to ethanol), and combined with the CZTS inks during sonication. All mixtures were centrifuged and washed several times – as a type of ligand-exchange, and the final inks were prepared by adding the said amount of alkali salt. In the end, all inks had been exposed the same mass of the respective alkali salt.
The thin films were deposited through a simple drop-casting technique, where one drop was casted onto a substrate of 2 cm2 and dried under a flow of nitrogen. This procedure was repeated three times. The substrates used were Mo-coated soda-lime glass (SLG).
Annealing was carried out in a quartz tube. An amount of 100 mg S powder and low amounts of SnS powder were placed with the samples in a graphite box. The oven was pumped down to below 10−2 mbar, filled with 100 mbar of N2, and heated to 600 °C in 45 min. The temperature was kept at 600 °C for 30 min, followed by a natural cooling of approximately 6 h to reach 100 °C. The oven temperature was calibrated with a thermocouple located inside the graphite box. The samples were quickly rinsed in DI water by immersing them for about 5 s into 20 ml of solution.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out on a Quanta FEG with a field emission gun. The composition was determined as an average of five measurements with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) in a SEM of type TM3000 from Hitachi with a 15 kV accelerating voltage and a Bruker Quantax 70 system. Raman measurements were performed at room temperature using a Renishaw spectrometer (inVia Raman Microscope) equipped with a CCD detector. A diode-pumped solid state laser with a wavelength of 532 nm was used for excitation and the spectra were calibrated by means of the Raman peak of Si at 520.5 cm−1. The measurements were performed in backscattering configuration using a laser power of 0.1 mW and a spot size of 2 × 2 μm2. In addition, a near UV He-Cd laser with a wavelength of 325 nm and a laser power of 20 mW was also used. Each spectrum represents an integration over 10 s. The crystallinity of the samples was determined by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) on a Bruker D8 Advance diffractometer at 40 kV and 40 mA, measured between 2θ of 20–60°, using Cu Kα-radiation (λ = 0.15418 nm). The Kα2-signal and background were subtracted from the XRD patterns with the program EVA. Optical diffuse reflectance measurements were obtained with an integrating sphere (reflectance geometry 8/d), using a laser-driven white light source (LDLS ENERGETIQ, 170–2000 nm) which was coupled to the sphere with a 600 μm optical fiber. The reflected light was collected with a fiber optics spectrophotometer (QE65000 from Ocean Optics). All reflectance measurements were calibrated with a diffuse reflectance standard and an optical trap. The diffuse reflectance data was converted to the equivalent absorption using the Kulbeka–Munk model, from which the optical band gap was extracted.14 Steady-state photoluminescence spectra were measured with an Accent RPM2000 system at an excitation wavelength of 532 nm and power density 100 W cm−2.
All films had a Cu-poor and Zn-rich composition, while also being Sn-poor, as displayed in Table 1. Due to the low atomic number of Li (Z = 3), and overlapping X-ray emission lines of the other alkali elements and cations, it was challenging to quantify the exact amount of alkali elements and chloride in the annealed films. Nonetheless, after a quick water rinse, absolutely no trace amounts of alkali or chloride could be detected within the films. ICP-MS was carried out on a different batch of as-synthesized nanoparticles (about 200 mg). The results showed that the composition was Cu1.97Zn1.03SnS3.77 and Cu1.76Zn0.99SnS3.54 according to EDX and ICP-MS, respectively, suggesting that the EDX analysis overestimates the Cu-content and slightly underestimates the Sn-content. Thus the films characterized in this paper are actually even more Cu-poor than the EDX data indicates.
Sample | Cu/(Zn + Sn) | Zn/Sn | Cu/Sn | FWHM(112) (deg) | I(112)/I(220) | Eg (eV) | PL max (eV) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No alkali | 0.73 | 1.63 | 1.92 | 0.15 | 2.69 | 1.52 | — |
Li | 0.73 | 1.74 | 2.00 | 0.20 | 2.43 | 1.51 | 1.35 |
Na | 0.75 | 1.70 | 2.01 | 0.15 | 2.53 | 1.52 | 1.33 |
K | 0.80 | 1.73 | 1.89 | 0.11 | 3.64 | 1.43 | 1.33 |
The phase was characterized by Raman spectroscopy and XRD, and the respective spectra and patterns are showed in Fig. 3 and 4. Raman analysis using the 532 nm excitation wavelength laser reveals many of the CZTS peaks for all annealed samples both with and without alkali elements.15,16 The peak shift from 335 cm−1 for the as-deposited film to 338 cm−1 for the annealed films has been explained by internal compressive stress that is released during annealing.17 In Fig. 3(b), the UV laser reveals the presence of ZnS.18 This is not surprising, since the composition used did contain rather high amounts of Zn; a necessity in order to avoid the formation of any Sn–S phases at the back Mo-interface, as has also been reported elsewhere.19 The presence of SnS2 is detrimental for a solar cell, and as such ZnS is preferred.20
In addition to the substrate diffraction peak at 2θ = 42 degrees assigned to the Mo substrate, the XRD patterns (Fig. 4) present several of the kesterite CZTS peaks (ICSD collection code 171983), namely 23.3 (110), 28.7 (112), 29.8 (103), 33.1 (200), 37.1 (202), 38.1 (211), 45.1 (105), 47.5 (220), 56.3 (303), and 59.0 degrees (224). Only the Li-sample includes a number of unidentified peaks, which could be related to several secondary phases. No noticeable peak shifts could be detected between the different samples, as has been seen by others as a result from alkali-incorporation in the bulk of CZTS.4 However, a difference is found in the I(112)/I(220) ratio, which increases for the K-sample (Table 1), suggesting a slight preferential orientation of these CZTS films. The full width half maximum (FWHM) of the main (112) reflection changes from 0.75 degrees to 0.11 degrees for the as-deposited sample to the annealed K-sample. This indicates an increase in the crystallite size from 11 nm to 75 nm, according to the Scherrer equation when assuming no strain in the film.
Opto-electronic properties of the films were also investigated in terms of the optical band gap and photoluminescence. The equivalent absorption coefficients, F(R∞), are displayed in Fig. 5(a), and the Tauc plot ((F(R∞)hv)2 versus photon energy, hv) is showed in Fig. 5(b), where the reflectance R∞ = Rsample/Rstandard. No band gap could be extracted from an as-deposited sample, suggesting a high density of non-radiative defects. The extrapolated direct optical band gaps of the Na-, Li- and as-annealed samples were approximately 1.5 eV, while the CZTS with K was around 1.45 eV. Potassium is not expected to shift the band gap of CZTS films, whereas Li has been seen to increase the band gap of similar samples.21 All measured values remain in the range of reported values for CZTS, and we cannot explain the shift in optical absorption.
The room-temperature photoluminescence spectrum in Fig. 6 shows the effect of alkali-incorporation on the typical photoluminescence intensity. In general, the K-samples displayed the highest intensity, closely followed by the Na-samples, whereas samples annealed without an alkali element did not show any photoluminescence signal. The increase in photoluminescence could be related to reduced interface recombination from quenching of non-radiative recombination paths in the absorber.22 Na is known to passivate grain boundary defects in CIGS,23 and reduce deep level traps in CIGS and CuInSe2.24–26 Similarly, Xin et al. saw that Li-doping increased the device efficiency of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) by improving the quality of the material.27 The photoluminescence peak positions of approximately 1.35 eV listed in Table 1 are extracted based on a Gaussian fit and indicate a VOC-deficit.
Fig. 7 Proposed nanoscale formation mechanism for CZTS nanoparticles annealed with and without K. Without K, individual particles cannot be merged completely, and the film remains porous and small-grained. With K, a liquid phase in the form of K2Sx or similar could be formed, and it will assist the sintering of the particles. The final film will thus become more dense and with larger grains. Sketch inspired by Tiong et al.6 |
When comparing the phase diagrams of Li–S, Na–S, and K–S, it is clear that the temperature at which the material becomes liquid is lower in the K–S system, which could explain why more grain growth takes place in these samples.33–35 Needless to say, decreasing the annealing temperature further is relevant both from an energy-saving-perspective and to limit evaporation of volatile elements in the CZTS compound.
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