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Development of SnS Based Solar Cells (SnS PV Cells)
Start date: Feb 2, 2011, End date: Feb 1, 2013 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Most solar cells manufactured are made using crystalline or multicrystalline silicon. However producing power with these cells remains expensive compared to conventional power generation. In order to reduce production costs thin film solar cells have been developed especially those based on the use of the compounds, cadmium telluride and copper gallium indium diselenide. Despite the excellent success of these cells in recent years, problems remain. Because of the cadmium contained in the former cells, there needs to be controlled disposal after use. In the latter cells there are concerns with the lack of abundance of indium and gallium when the scale of production is increased. It is possible that other inorganic materials can be used to produce solar cells without these drawbacks; one such material is tin sulphide. This compound has a near optimum direct energy bandgap for photovoltaic solar energy conversion, it consists of abundant elements and it can be made either n-type or p-type by appropriate doping. Large scale industrial processes already exist for producing thin films of tin and sulphidising metals and in previous work we have produced devices with efficiencies up to 1-2%. In this work we aim to increase the efficiency to>10% to demonstratre the viability of this exciting new material.

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