Co-sputtering deposition and optical-electrical characteristic of Cu2CdSnS4 thin films for use in solar cells

Cu2CdSnS4 is an important candidate material for thin-film solar cell absorber layers. In this work, a low-cost Cu2CdSnS4 thin film with a cernyite structure has been successfully fabricated by sulfurization of the precursor film obtained by co-sputtering three different targets: Cu, Sn and CdS. The resulting sulfurized Cu2CdSnS4 thin film shows large densely packed grains and has a band gap value of 1.4 eV and a hole mobility of 21.35 cm2 v−1 s−1. Thus, a Cu2CdSnS4 thin-film solar cell with a proof of concept power conversion efficiency of 1.14% was fabricated.