Fabrication of Cu2SnS3 thin-film solar cells with oxide precursor by pulsed laser deposition

In this paper, Cu2SnS3 (CTS) thin film is fabricated through sulfurization of oxide precursor which is deposited by pulsed laser deposition with a mixed CuO/SnO2 target. XRD and Raman analyses indicate a pure monoclinic Cu2SnS3 phase has been obtained by sulfurization at temperature from 500 to 600 °C. A compact and smooth film with polycrystalline structure is observed through SEM result. In addition, the CTS films show excellent absorbance with the band gap around 0.91 eV estimated by UV–Vis, which is suitable for the absorption layer of solar cells. Final devices were fabricated with a SLG/Mo/CTS/CdS/i-ZnO/AZO/Al structure. Device performance is improved with the temperature increasing. The best efficiency of CTS-based solar cells is 0.69% with an open-circuit voltage of 144 mV and a short-circuit current density of 18.30 mA/cm−2.