Fabrication of earth-abundant CZTS thin film solar cells

Abstract

About 20 years ago, in 1995, we had started to develop the novel thin film solar cells using CZTS as an absorber to be able to use in the after next generation. The conversion efficiency of CZTS thin film solar cells reported for the first time in 1996 was only 0.66% and it had been improved to about 7% in our laboratory. Because the potential of CZTS-based thin film solar cells seems to be quite high, we will be able to overcome the resource problem of rare-metal in the near future. In this review manuscript we will survey our previous works and show the recent results concerning with this promising solar cells.