An open atmosphere type chemical vapor deposition (OA-CVD) method is one of the most effective methods for producing functional thin films. Especially, the OA-CVD method is a unique technique which is able to deposit metal oxide thin films by decomposition of vaporized raw materials released through a nozzle onto substrates in the air. Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS)-based thin films as absorber layers of thin film solar cells were fabricated by sulfurizing oxide precursor thin films synthesized by the OA-CVD method. Cu(C5H7O2)2, Zn(C5H7O2)2 and Sn(C5H7O2)2 were used as raw materials. The oxide precursor thin films were sulfurized at 520–560 °C in 5 vol% H2S balanced with N2. The formed CZTS-based thin films included oxygen with the composition ratio of O/(S + O) = 0.17–0.27 according to energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The thin film solar cells using the CZTS-based thin films including oxygen [CZT(S,O) films] as the absorber layers were fabricated. The CZT(S,O) thin film solar cell had a stack structure of Al/Al-doped-ZnO/CdS/CZT(S,O)/Mo/soda-lime glass substrate. The efficiency of the CZT(S,O) thin film solar cells was 6.03%, which was the high efficiency in the reported value for CZTS-based thin film solar cells using oxide thin film precursors. It was found that the OA-CVD method is suited to fabricate the absorber layers of thin film solar cells.
