Effects of Temperature and Post Deposition Annealing on SnS Polycrystalline Thin Film Growth

The limited amount in nature of Te and In and the use of toxic elements like Cd and Se in CdTe and CuInGaSe2 solar devices (despite they have no effect on the environment) could be overcome with alternative thin films. SnS is one of the most promising materials due to its electrical and physical properties, but it is already demonstrated that high quality SnS thin films are required to enhance solar cells efficiency. In the present work, we have found out a threshold temperature, above which the absorber grows highly crystallized and compact avoiding the porous structure observed previously. The properties of this differently grown film is presented and compared with low substrate temperature layers. Moreover the study of a new post deposition treatment, which merges our CdCl2 methodologies with new non-toxic salts (KI or SnCl2), more suitable for SnS, is presented.