Annealing Effect on the SnSe Nanocrystalline Thin Films and the Photovoltaic Properties of the p-SnSe/n-Si Heterojunction Solar Cells

Abstract

A thin film of SnSe were deposited by thermal evaporation technique on 400 ±20 nm thick glass substrates of these films were annealed at different temperatures (100,150,200 ⁰C), The effect of annealing on the characteristics of the nano crystalline SnSe thin films was investigated using XRD, UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and Hall effect measurements. The results of X-ray displayed that all the thin films have polycrystalline and orthorhombic structure in nature, while UV-VIS study showed that the SnSe has direct band gap of nano crystalline and it is changed from 60.12 to 94.70 nm with increasing annealing temperature. Hall effect measurements showed that all the films have a positive Hall coefficient, which means that the conductivity of the films is p-type. The conductivity of SnSe films was increased with increasing annealing temperatures (except that at 200⁰C). The I-V characteristics under illumination for the "p-SnSe/n-Si” solar cell displayed an increase in conversion efficiency with increasing annealing temperature from R.T to 150⁰C, while at 200⁰C, this efficiency was decreased. The measurements of the C-V characteristics displayed that all junctions were abrupt type. It is clear from C-V measurements that the capacitance decreased with increasing reverse bias voltage which leads to an increase in the depletion width.