Efficient In Situ Sulfuration Process in Hydrothermally Deposited Sb₂S₃ Absorber Layers

Sulfuration plays a decisive role in enhancing crystal growth and passivate defects in the fabrication of high-efficiency metal-sulfide solar cells. However, the traditional sulfuration process always suffers from high-price professional equipment, tedious processes, low activity of S, or high toxicity of H2S. Here, we develop a desired in situ sulfuration by introducing tartaric acid additive into the hydrothermal deposition process of Sb2S3. Tartaric acid, sodium thiosulfate, and potassium antimony tartaric can form Sb2Sx-contained (x > 3) as-prepared films. Encouragingly, the annealing becomes an inspiring in situ sulfuration process, which can obtain a more compact absorber layer. In addition, the crystallinity and defect property of the Sb2S3 film are also improved significantly. Finally, we achieve a high-performance Sb2S3 solar cell with a power conversion efficiency of 6.31%, which shows an encouraging enhancement of ∼15% compared with the traditional hydrothermal process. This study provides an innovative way to prepare high-efficiency Sb2S3 solar cells and provides a desirable guide to realize the in situ sulfuration process

Additional file 1: Figures S1–S6. of Facile Fabrication of Bi2WO6/Ag2S Heterostructure with Enhanced Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Performances

The EDS, BET surface area, and Zeta potential analysis for the as-formed heterostructures, the XRD pattern of Ag2S, and the temporal evolution of Rh B absorption spectra over Bi2WO6/Ag2S heterostructure at different pH values. Figure S1. Elemental mapping and EDX spectra of the Bi2WO6/Ag2S heterostructure. Figure S2. EDS spectra of the composite photocatalysts Bi2WO6/Ag2S. Figure S3. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms and the pore size distribution curve (inset) of sample (a) Bi2WO6 and (b) Bi2WO6/Ag2S. Figure S4. XRD pattern of Ag2S. Figure S5. Zeta potential for a suspension containing 1 g L of sample Bi2WO6/Ag2S in the presence of KCl (10−3 M) at different pH values. Figure S6. The temporal evolution of Rh B absorption spectra over Bi2WO6/Ag2S heterostructure at different pH values