Beyond 11% Efficiency: Characteristics of State-of-the-Art Cu_2ZnSn(S,Se)_4 Solar Cells

摘要

Widespread adoption of solar energy has the potential to bring human civilization greater long-term economic and geopolitical sustainability than currently possible with fossil fuels. However, to fabricate the needed photovoltaic module capacity beyond terawatt levels it is critical to develop low-cost high-throughput production technologies that are unlimited by materials supply and that yield competitive efficiency levels. Thin-film chalcoge-nide photovoltaic (PV) technologies offer exceptional opportunity for high-performance, large-area module production, with advantages including the direct band gap absorber, relatively benign grain boundaries with respect to photocarrier recombination and suitability of the technologies for monolithic integration. Indeed, commercial production of the two leading thin-film technologies, CdTe and Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)_2 (CIGSSe), has rapidly increased, with both technologies surpassing 1 gigawatt (GW) production capacity in 2011.