Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: As global interest in sustainable energy solutions intensifies, inverted chalcogenide solar cells have gained significant attention for their promising combination of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and customizable light-absorption capabilities. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, working principles, manufacturing approaches, and performance enhancement techniques for these photovoltaic systems. The device architecture generally features a multilayer design: a transparent conductive oxide substrate, a hole-selective transport layer, a photoactive chalcogenide semiconductor, an electron-collecting transport layer, and a metallic back contact. When exposed to sunlight, the absorber layer generates charge carriers that undergo efficient separation at material interfaces, with electrons migrating through the ETL and holes via the HTL to generate electrical output. Advanced deposition methods such as spin-coating and thermal evaporation are critically compared, highlighting the trade-offs between production scalability and layer morphology control in solution-based fabrication processes. The discussion further addresses recent innovations in interface engineering, bandgap tuning, and defect passivation that collectively contribute to improved power conversion efficiencies. By evaluating both fundamental mechanisms and practical manufacturing considerations, this analysis offers insights into the development roadmap for next-generation thin-film photovoltaic technologies.
Author: Tingyu Wang
Institution: Sichuan University
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4410617826