Back Contact Interfacial Modification in Highly-Efficient All-Inorganic Planar n-i-p Sb<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> Solar Cells
Cong Liu, Kai Shen, Dongxu Lin, Ye Cao, Shudi Qiu, Jianzha Zheng, Feixiong Bao, Yanyan Gao, Hongbing Zhu, Zhiqiang Li, Yaohua Mai
Abstract
Sb2Se3 is an emerging and promising light-absorbing material with superior photovoltaic properties. However, the specific one-dimensional structure of Sb2Se3 limits the doping density, preventing a high built-in potential. Moreover, in the superstrate devices the back contact is often non-ohmic. In this work, we have successfully applied tungsten oxide (WO3-x) as a hole-transport layer in superstrate n-i-p Sb2Se3 solar cells. It is found that an interfacial dipole is formed at Sb2Se3/WO3-x interface via Sb–W bonds, which reduces the barrier for hole extraction. Meantime, gap states are present at a suitable energy level to serve as intermediate states for hole-transport from the Sb2Se3 absorber to the metal anode. In addition, the introduction of WO3-x can suppress carrier recombination at the back interface, enhance the built-in potential, and improve the spectral response in the long-wavelength region. Consequently, the superstrate devices with the incorporated WO3-x layer achieve a champion efficiency of 7.10% due to the enhancement of all device parameters. Furthermore, the all-inorganic devices with WO3-x hole-transport layer exhibit excellent air stability and thermal stability.