Purity matters : enhancing carrier transport properties in tin sulfide for photovoltaic applications by reducing impurity content

Tin sulfide (SnS), a potential p-type absorber material for photovoltaic applications, is hampered by poor carrier-transport properties, particularly minority-carrier lifetime. This study investigates the role of intrinsic and extrinsic crystallographic point defects on the electronic transport properties of SnS. High-purity SnS is grown via sulfurization of tin films, and compared with baseline material made from feedstock with two orders of magnitude higher impurity content. Minority-carrier lifetime, morphology, and impurity content are analyzed in both materials. It is shown that improving feedstock purity by two orders of magnitude results in an improvement to minority-carrier lifetime from under 100 ps to over 2 ns. Simulations suggest that this increase in minority-carrier lifetime could lead to device efficiency improvements.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Polizzotti, Alex J

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tonio Buonassisi.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103495

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/103495