Development of CZTS thin films solar cells by pulsed laser deposition: Influence of pulse repetition rate

► Development of CZTS thin film solar cell by PLD. ► Structural optical compositional and morphology properties of CZTS thin films. ► Influence of pulse repetition rate on physicochemical properties CZTS thin films. High-quality Cu 2ZnSnS 4 (CZTS) thin films were synthesized by pulsed laser deposition as a function of pulse repetition rate onto the SLG substrates. Influence of pulse repetition rate onto the structural, morphological, compositional and optical properties have been investigated for as-deposited and annealed thin films. X-ray diffraction study shows transformation of amorphous to crystalline phase after tuning pulse repetition rate and annealing of samples. FESEM images of thin films show increase in grain size upon annealing. Films are nearly stoichiometric deposited at 10 Hz repetition rate has been confirmed with the help of EDAX and XPS analysis. The direct band gap energy of the deposited CZTS thin films are in the solar energy range. The performance of solar cell based on CZTS absorber layer has been tested and the efficiency is about 2%.