研究目的
Investigating the electronic and optical properties of newly reported In3?xSe4 compound and its potential as an electron transport window layer for the chalcogenide/p-Si heterojunction solar cells.
研究成果
The electronic and optical properties of the In3?xSe4 compound have been studied employing CASTEP based on the DFT method. The band structure of the In3?xSe4 compound (for x < 1/3) exhibits that the Fermi level (EF) crossed over several bands, which is an indication of highly degenerate n-type semiconducting or metallic behavior. On the contrary, a band gap of ~0.2 eV was found for In3?xSe4 (x = 1/3) from the band structure calculation. The DOS calculations ensured the metallic conductivity of In3Se4 through dispersion of In 5s, In 5p and Se 4s, Se 4p orbitals. The chemical bonding in In3?xSe4 materials shows mainly the ionic or metallic and covalent nature from the electronic charge density map. Electron-like Fermi surface appeared in the compound, which implies its single-band character. The calculated value of carrier concentration is ~6.01 × 1021 cm?3, which agrees well with the reported values. The optical study of In3?xSe4 indicates that band gap of stoichiometric In3Se4 should be >1.62 eV, which is consistent with the reported values. We also demonstrate the highly e?cient In3Se4?x/p-Si heterojunction solar cells by SCAPS software using experimental data. These results indicate the potential of the In3?xSe4 compound in solar energy harvesting in future.
研究不足
The LDA function consistently underestimates the band gap. The optical band gap is normally calculated using hybrid functional HSE06 function based on DFT for accurate value, although it is reported that DFT-based hybrid functional cannot always give exact band gaps of the materials found in the experiments. However, HSE06 function was not performed in this study due to system limitations.