In recent decades, the demand for clean energy has promoted extensive research on solar cells as a key renewable energy source. Among the various emerging absorber layer materials, Kesterite-type semiconductors have aroused significant interest. Especially, Kesterite Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) stands out as a promising candidate for low-cost thin-film solar cells due to its direct bandgap, high optical absorption coefficient, suitable bandgap (1.39–1.52 eV), and abundance of constituent elements. However, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of CZTS-based solar cells currently lags behind that of Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) cells, mainly due to insufficient open-circuit voltage caused by a large number of disordered cations and defect clusters, resulting in non-radiative recombination and band-tail states.

To address these challenges, partial or complete cation substitution has become a viable strategy for altering the harmful defects in CZTS. This study proposes a heterovalent substitution of Zn in CZTS and explores the potential of novel quaternary chalcogenide compound A₂M₂M'Q₄ (A = Na, K, Rb, Cs, In, Tl; M = Cu, Ag, Au; M' = Ti, Zr, Hf, Ge, Sn; Q = S, Se, Te) as absorbers for solar cells. By substituting elements in five prototype structures, a comprehensive material database comprising 1350 A₂M₂M'Q₄ compounds is established.

High-throughput screening and first-principles calculations are used to evaluate the thermodynamic stabilities, band gaps, spectroscopic limited maximum efficiencies (SLMEs), and phonon dispersions of these compounds. Our research results indicate that 543 compounds exhibit thermodynamic stability (E_hull < 0.01 eV/atom), 202 compounds possess suitable band gaps (1.0–1.5 eV), and 10 compounds meet all the criteria for thermodynamic and dynamic stability, suitable band gaps, and high optical absorption performance (10⁴–10⁶ cm^–1), with theoretical SLME values exceeding 30%.

Notably, Ibam-Rb₂Ag₂GeTe₄ exhibits the highest SLME (31.8%) in these candidates, featuring a band gap of 1.27 eV and a small carrier effective mass (< m₀). The electronic structures and optical properties of these compounds are comparable to those of CZTS, which makes them suitable for highly efficient single-junction thin-film solar cells.

All the data presented in this work can be found at https://www.doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00213.00006.