Effect of p-type transition metal dichalcogenide molybdenum ditelluride (p-MoTe2) layer formation in Cadmium Telluride solar cells from numerical analysis
In this paper, we have investigated the effects of transition metal dichalcogenide namely Molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) layer formation in between Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) absorber layer and Mo back contact from numerical modeling. The main purpose was to investigate the possible effects of p-type MoTe2 in CdTe thin film solar cell. Energy band line-up in the vicinity of Mo/MoTe2/CdTe interface is investigated to explain the interface properties in terms of various parameters. It was found that p-type MoTe2 has some effects to the performance of CdTe thin film solar cells. Thickness, bandgap energy and carrier concentration of p-MoTe2 all have been varied in the numerical simulation to observe its effects on the cell performance. It was found that when thickness of MoTe2 is less than 20 nm, the cell efficiency decreases, which may be due to the shunting caused by the thinner p-MoTe2. Furthermore, the increase in MoTe2 bandgap results in unfavorable effect to the performance of the cell mainly due to the possibility of electrons to drift towards the back contact and recombination. The increase of the carrier concentration improves the cell performance. This could be attributed to the less recombination of electrons as well as less built in potential (Vbi) at MoTe2/CdTe junction.
Towards high-efficiency CZTS solar cells via p-MoS2 interfacial layer optimisation
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the impact of the p-MoS2 transition metal dichalcogenide as an interfacial layer between the CZTS absorber and Mo back contact in the CZTS based solar cell. The study was performed using SCAPS-1D numerical simulation. The I–V characteristic demonstrated a higher slope than CZTS solar cells without considering the interfacial layer. The results verified that the p-MoS2 layer beneficially on the CZTS/Mo hetero-contact mediating an ohmic contact. Accordingly, the conversion efficiency improves from 12.14% to 16.71%. To evaluate the role of the p-MoS2 layer, various performance parameters such as open-circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Jsc), fill factor FF, and efficiency η were explored versus thicknesses, bandgap energies, and the acceptor carrier concentration (NA). The results show that a thickness of the interfacial layer of less than 200 nm could cause deterioration of the overall cell performance, mainly due to created high barriers at the CZTS/p-MoS2 and p-MoS2/Mo interfaces, at low thicknesses, which impedes the drift of photogenerated holes. Additionally, increasing the NA above 1016 cm−3 improves the cell performance, owing to the favourable band alignment at the back contact. Values obtained for Voc and Jsc are 0.88 V and 25.5 mA/cm2, respectively. Moreover, the effect of series resistance Rs on CZTS solar cells was investigated. The efficiency decreases from 12.84% to 9.69% when the Rs correspondingly increases from 0 Ω to 5 Ω.
Trigonal-prismatic coordination in solid compounds of transition metals
Abstract The ligand-field splitting of d levels in trigonal-prismatic coordination is discussed in terms of crystal-field and simple molecular-orbital calculations. It is found that d-covalency provides a stabilizing factor for trigonal-prismatic coordination, as compared with octahedral coordination, for atoms with d0, d1 or d2 configuration. This effect qualitatively explains the occurrence of trigonal-prismatic coordination in strongly covalent 4d and 5d transition-metal chalcogenides, in which the metal atoms have d1 or d2 configuration. The same type of arguments are used to explain the stability of trigonal-prismatic coordination of alkali metals in some intercalation compounds. The stability of structures with trigonal-prismatic coordination of d0 anions, such as the NiAs and MnP types, is also attributed to this effect. The physical properties of 4d and 5d transition-metal dichalcogenides are correlated with schematic energy-band diagrams, which are consistent with the ligand-field splitting of the d levels derived in earlier sections of this paper.