The staff of the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering (ECE) — Zabuha A., Dobrozhan O., Velykodnyi D., Opanasiuk A. — have published another paper entitled “Impact of optical and recombination losses on the photovoltaic parameters of thin-film solar cells with n-CdS(ZnO, ZnMgO)/p-Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ heterojunctions” in a high-ranking journal. The paper was published in “Micro and Nanostructures,” which belongs to the Q2 quartile and has an impact factor IF = 3. A co-author of the article is Artem Zabuha, a student of our specialty, who made a very significant contribution to the successful publication of the paper. We would like to remind that Artem was recognized as the best student researcher. Recently, he received the honorary title “Best Student Researcher” of Sumy State University, which is a recognition of his diligent work, substantial achievements, and active contribution to the development of scientific research.
The article is devoted to the search for new compounds for absorber layers of third-generation solar cells (SCs). Such compounds should be inexpensive, environmentally safe, and provide a high solar-to-electric energy conversion efficiency, that is, their bandgap should correspond to the Shockley–Queisser optimum. Among modern third-generation photovoltaic materials, the tetrahedrite compound Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ (CAS) currently attracts considerable attention, as all its components are non-toxic and widely distributed in the Earth’s crust. In the doped state (in particular, with zinc and selenium), this compound exhibits an exceptionally high light absorption coefficient (α ≈ 10⁵ cm⁻¹), which makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the SC absorber layer to hundreds of nanometers, rendering the devices transparent and flexible. This, in turn, significantly expands the application range of such photovoltaic converters. Although the tetrahedrite compound CAS has been well studied from the perspective of thermoelectric applications, its efficiency as an absorber layer for solar cells still required validation. This is precisely what the authors demonstrated in their paper. They calculated optical and recombination losses in solar cells with the n-CdS(ZnO, ZnMgO)/p-Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ architecture with the aim of minimizing these losses. As a result of the calculations, optimal device designs with CAS absorber layers were proposed, and their key parameters were determined: open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, fill factor, and maximum conversion efficiency of the photovoltaic devices. It was confirmed that the tetrahedrite material indeed enables the creation of highly efficient solar cells, primarily tandem ones, with a total thickness not exceeding several micrometers.
Thus, the authors of the article proposed a fundamentally new absorber material for photovoltaic solar energy converters, formulated recommendations for the development of high-efficiency CAS-based solar cells, and outlined the steps required for the experimental implementation of such devices.
