Sintered CZTS Nanoparticle Solar Cells
AssigneeSolexant Corp.
InventorsCharlie Hotz, Margaret Hines, Donald Zehnder, Damoder Reddy, Jing Tang
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention discloses an absorber composition and photovoltaic device (PV) using the composition comprising nanoparticles and/or sintered nanoparticles comprising compounds having the formula MAxMByMCz(LAaLBb)4 where MA, MB and MC comprise elements chosen from the group consisting of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Sn and Pb, LA and LB are chalcogens and x is between 1.5 and 2.2, y and z are independently the same or different and are between 0.5 and 1.5 and (a+b)=1. Particularly preferred synthetic routes to uniform thin films in PV devices comprising sintered nanoparticles of Cu2ZnSnSe4 and Cu2ZnSnS4 are disclosed.
Claims26
1) A solar cell absorber composition comprising nanoparticles,
- said nanoparticles comprise a compound having the formula MAxMByMCz(LAaLBb)4 where MA, MB and MC comprise elements chosen from the group consisting of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Sn and Pb, LA and LB are chalcogens and
- x is between 1.5 and 2.2, y and z are independently the same or different and are between 0.5 and 1.5 and (a+b)=1.
10) A photovoltaic device, comprising:
- two electrodes, at least one of which is transparent,
- an absorber layer comprising nanoparticles,
- and a window layer,
- said nanoparticles comprise a compound having the formula
- MAxMByMCz(LAaLBb)4 where MA, MB and MC comprise elements chosen from the group consisting of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Sn and Pb, LA and LB are chalcogens and x is between 1.5 and 2.2, y and z are independently the same or different and are between 0.5 and 1.5 and (a+b)=1.
20) A method of making a photovoltaic device, comprising:
- coating a viscous dispersion on a substrate,
- said viscous dispersion comprises nanoparticles in a solvent,
- said nanoparticles comprise CuxE, where x is 1 or 2 and E is S or Se;
- ZnS and SnEx where E is S or Se and x is 1 or 2, and
- sintering the nanoparticles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.