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Solution-processed kesterite solar module with 10.1% certified efficiency

Nature Energy volume 10, pages 1315–1322 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Solution processing has great advantages for emerging thin-film solar cells but remains a big challenge for multielemental inorganic films due to complicated phase evolution and grain growth during crystallization. Here we report the fabrication of uniform, large-area Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) films and solar modules from solution. By tuning the thiourea/metal ratio to increase film porosity—thereby promoting more uniform vertical reaction and lateral grain growth—we improved the uniformity of CZTSSe films and achieved a single-cell efficiency of 13.4% and a solar module efficiency of 8.91%. We further optimized the module structure to reduce non-ideal contact and patterning-induced shunt and resistive losses, resulting in a champion CZTSSe module with a National Renewable Energy Laboratory-certified efficiency of 10.1%. This module also exhibits the lowest cell-to-module loss in open circuit voltage and current density among state-of-the-art emerging thin-film solar modules. Our work demonstrates the viability of solution processing to deposit uniform, large-area CZTSSe film and efficient solar modules, advancing the development of the technology.

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Fig. 1: The uniformity of solution-processed kesterite solar cells.
Fig. 2: Kesterite solar module and stability.
Fig. 3: Certification of kesterite module and CTM losses.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The simulation tool called SOLEY was developed at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya by Zacharie Victor Samuel Nathana Jehl for thin-film solar cell modelling. It was used as a supporting tool for simulating the J–V curves and CTM losses. The code is proprietary.

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Acknowledgements

H.X. and W.Y. acknowledge the funding from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant nos. 2024YFB4205001 and 2019YFE0118100). S.W. acknowledges the funding from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2024YFB4205004). H.X. and W.Y. acknowledge the funding from the Major Basic Research Projects of the Shandong Natural Science Foundation (grant no. ZR2021ZD25). H.X. acknowledges the funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22075150). C.X. acknowledges the support of Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (grant no. KYCX23_0978). We thank Z. V. S. N. Jehl from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya for CTM losses modelling and valuable discussions.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Chunxu Xiang, Mingjun Yuan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics, Institute of Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China

    Chunxu Xiang, Mingjun Yuan, Chuan’an Ding, Yuanyuan Zheng, Yize Li, Xinyu Li, Chengfeng Ma, Shaoying Wang, Weibo Yan, Wei Huang & Hao Xin

  2. Center for Photonics Information and Energy Materials, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China

    Xiaole Hu, Jie Zhang & Chunlei Yang

Authors
  1. Chunxu Xiang
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Contributions

H.X. directed the overall project. H.X., C.X. and M.Y. conceived the idea and designed the project. H.X. and C.X. co-wrote the paper. C.X. fabricated the single-cells and modules, and performed material and device characterizations. M.Y. designed module structure modification and assisted module fabrication. C.D. and X.H. provided assistance in module patterning. Y.Z. and Y.L participated in single-cell fabrication, optimization and data collection. X.L., C.M. and W.Y. provided assistance in XRD, SEM, J–V and EQE analysis. S.W. designed SEM–EDS and TOF-SIMS experiments and co-revised paper. J.Z. and C.Y. provided guidance on module preparation. W.H. provided financial assistance. All authors read and commented on the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shaoying Wang, Wei Huang or Hao Xin.

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Nature Energy thanks Stela Canulescu, Dae-Hwan Kim, Susan Schorr and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–21, Tables 1–3 and References 1–3.

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Supplementary Data 1 (download XLSX )

Statistical data of Supplementary Figs 2, 7 and 9, unprocessed J–V data of Supplementary Figs. 8 and 19 and the data points of Supplementary Table 1.

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Source Data Fig. 1 (download XLSX )

Statistical device data.

Source Data Fig. 2 (download XLSX )

Unprocessed I–V data.

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Xiang, C., Yuan, M., Ding, C. et al. Solution-processed kesterite solar module with 10.1% certified efficiency. Nat Energy 10, 1315–1322 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-025-01860-3

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