Fabrication of Sb2Se3 thin film solar cells by co-sputtering of Sb2Se3 and Se targets

Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) has attracted scientific interest due to its many advantages such as its appropriate band gap, non-toxicity, element abundance, and high absorption coefficient ( > 10(5) cm(-1)). However, selenium (Se) is easily lost at high vapor pressures, thus leading to Se vacancies and increased recombination centers in films. In this work, Sb2Se3 films with good crystallinity were fabricated by co-sputtering of Sb2Se3 and Se targets with a substrate temperature of 350 degrees C and without a subsequent annealing process. The crystal structural properties, surface morphology, and optical and electrical properties of films with different Se contents were explored. Finally, we fabricated solar cells with a structure of FTO/CdS/Sb2Se3/Au and achieved an efficiency up to 3.47%.