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Structural and electronic modification of photovoltaic SnS by alloying

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/m039k6370

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  • Emergence of a terawatt scalable photovoltaic (PV) thin film technology is currently impeded by the limited supply of relatively rare elements like In or Te, which has spurred active research in recent years on earth-abundant PV materials. Instead of searching for alternative PV materials, we approach the problem here by structural modification through alloying of a known PV material, namely, tin sulfide. Although SnS is a strong visible light absorber that is naturally p-doped, its indirect band gap reduces the open circuit voltage of SnS-based solar cells. The anisotropic crystal structure results in undesirable anisotropic transport properties. Based on the observation that the isoelectronic sulfides MgS, CaS, and SrS assume the rock-salt structure, we use ab initio calculations to explore the structure and electronic properties of metastable Sn[subscript 1-x](II)[subscript x]S (II=Mg, Ca, Sr) alloys, finding that the isotropic rock-salt phase is stabilized above x=0.2–0.3, and predicting direct band gaps in the range of interest for PV applications, i.e., 0.6–1.5 eV for Ca and Sr alloying. We subsequently synthesized such Sn[subscript 1-x](Ca)[subscript x]S films by pulsed laser deposition, confirmed the cubic rock-salt structure, and observed optical band gaps between 1.1 and 1.3 eV. These results highlight the potential of structural modification by alloying as a route to widen the otherwise limited materials base for promising earth-abundant materials.
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  • Vidal, J., Lany, S., Francis, J., Kokenyesi, R., & Tate, J. (2014). Structural and electronic modification of photovoltaic SnS by alloying. Journal of Applied Physics, 115(11), 113507. doi:10.1063/1.4868974
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  • 115
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  • 11
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  • Part of this work was supported by the US Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 to NREL. J.V. and S.L. were supported by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within the SunShot initiative. R.K. was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, within an Energy Frontier Research Center. J.F. and J.T. were supported by the National Science Foundation under DMR 1035513.
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