CZTS

Copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) is a quaternary semiconducting compound which has received increasing interest since the late 2000s for applications in thin film solar cells. The class of related materials includes other I2-II-IV-VI4 such as copper zinc tin selenide (CZTSe) and the sulfur-selenium alloy CZTSSe. CZTS offers favorable optical and electronic properties similar to CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) making it well suited for use as a thin-film solar cell absorber layer, but unlike CIGS (or other thin films such as CdTe), CZTS is composed of only abundant and non-toxic elements. Concerns with the price and availability of indium in CIGS and tellurium in CdTe, as well as toxicity of cadmium have been a large motivator to search for alternative thin film solar cell materials. Recent material improvements for CZTS have increased the efficiency to 12.6% in laboratory cells, but more work is needed for their commercialization. Copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) is a quaternary semiconducting compound which has received increasing interest since the late 2000s for applications in thin film solar cells. The class of related materials includes other I2-II-IV-VI4 such as copper zinc tin selenide (CZTSe) and the sulfur-selenium alloy CZTSSe. CZTS offers favorable optical and electronic properties similar to CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) making it well suited for use as a thin-film solar cell absorber layer, but unlike CIGS (or other thin films such as CdTe), CZTS is composed of only abundant and non-toxic elements. Concerns with the price and availability of indium in CIGS and tellurium in CdTe, as well as toxicity of cadmium have been a large motivator to search for alternative thin film solar cell materials. Recent material improvements for CZTS have increased the efficiency to 12.6% in laboratory cells, but more work is needed for their commercialization. CZTS is a I2-II-IV-VI4 quaternary compound. From the chalcopyrite CIGS structure, one can obtain CZTS by substituting the trivalent In/Ga with a bivalent Zn and IV-valent Sn which forms in the kesterite structure. Some literature reports have identified CZTS in the related stannite structure, but conditions under which a stannite structure may occur are not yet clear. First-principle calculations show that the crystal energy is only 2.86 meV/atom higher for the stannite than kesterite structure suggesting that both forms can coexist. Structural determination (via techniques like X-ray diffraction) is hindered by disorder of the Cu-Zn cations, which are the most common defect as predicted by theoretical calculations and confirmed by neutron scattering. The near random ordering of Cu and Zn may lead to misidentification of the structure. Theoretical calculations predict the disorder of the Cu-Zn cations to lead to potential fluctuations in the CZTS and could therefore the cause for the large open circuit voltage deficit, the main bottle neck of state-of-the-art CZTS devices. The disorder can be reduced by temperature treatments. However, other temperature treatments alone do not seem to be able to yield highly ordered CZTS. Other strategies need to be developed to reduce this defect, such as tuning of the CZTS composition.