Structural, electrical and optical properties of AlSb thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition

Aluminum antimony (AlSb) is a potential absorber for solar cells. In present work, we fabricated AlSb thin films by using pulsed laser deposition method, and investigated the influence of substrate temperature on the structural, electrical and optical properties of AlSb thin films. The results suggested that the AlSb thin films were crystal when the substrate temperature was higher than 300 °C. The average grain size of AlSb films increased and the electrical resistivity decreased with the increase of substrate temperature. At the optimized temperature of 400 °C, the optical band gap of AlSb thin film was 1.82eV. The simulated device performance of ZnS/AlSb ultra-thin solar cells showed that the power conversion efficiency was 18.01% and the quantum efficiency values were higher than 55% in the visible range.