Copper oxide based nanostructures for improved solar cell efficiency (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2013
In this study, copper oxide (CuO) thin film/silicon (Si) nanowire heterojunctions have been fabricated and their optoelectronic performances have been investigated. Vertically aligned n-type Si nanowires have been fabricated using metal-assisted etching (MAE) technique. CuO thin films were synthesized by the sol-gel method and deposited onto the nanowires through spin-coating. Fabricated nanowire heterojunction devices exhibited excellent diode behaviour compared to the planar heterojunction control device. The rectification ratios were found to be 10 5 and 10 1 for nanowire and planar heterojunctions, respectively. The improved electrical properties and photosensitivity of the nanowire heterojunction diode was observed, which was related to the three-dimensional nature of the interface between the Si nanowires and the CuO film. Results obtained in this work reveal the potential of Si nanowire-based heterojunctions for various optoelectronic devices.
Modeling, synthesis, and characterization of thin film Copper Oxide for solar cells
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference ( …, 2009
The modeling, growth, and characterization of Copper Oxide thin films for solar cell applications are reported. CU20 has several attractive properties which include its direct band gap (Eg=2.17 eV) for use in photoelectrolysis of water and use in tandem multi-junction cells. Detailed balance calculations predict efficiencies on the order of 200/0 while CU20 cells have yet to even pass 20/0 efficiency. The device physics model reveals that defects, particularly at the heterojunction interface, are the main reason for lowered efficiencies. Epitaxial CU20 (100) thin films on MgO are fabricated using RF Oxygen plasma MBE. The films are quite smooth and showed mobilites in the range of 10-100 cm 2N*sec and carrier concentrations in the range of 10 14_1017 . Finally, the epitaxial growth of CU20 on a MgO template is demonstrated.
Whereas solar photovoltaic cells are promising for proper power production,their wide deployment is hampered by production costs, material availability and toxicity. One of these materials is CuO, which has great chemical stability as well as interesting physical properties, including a direct band gap, a high absorption coef cient, and p-type conductivity. These properties indicate CuO as an exciting semiconducting material to use an absorber layer in thin lms solar cells. For this speci c reason, this paper focuses on the synthesis of undoped and Ni-doped CuO thin lms by spray pyroly- sis process. Several techniques such as; X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and UV-Visible spectroscopy have been employed to characterize the synthesized samples. The XRD analysis indicated the formation of polycrystalline CuO thin lms and the average crystallite size was decreased from 35 to 20 nm for the samples with x = 0...
Review of the development of copper oxides with titanium dioxide thin-film solar cells
AIP Advances, 2020
Copper oxide-titanium dioxide (TiO 2) p-n junctions are promising materials for photovoltaic devices and may reduce production costs due to their low cost and inexpensive production methods compared with silicon solar cells. The present review compares solar cells made with copper oxides combined with TiO 2-TiO 2 /Cu 2 O and TiO 2 /CuO heterojunctions, and "cascade heterojunction systems." First, we describe the main properties of titanium (IV) dioxide (TiO 2), cuprous oxide (Cu 2 O), and cupric oxide (CuO), and their potential applications. Next, we explain the concept of copper oxide and TiO 2 heterojunctions. We summarize and present the photovoltaic characteristics (efficiency, fill factor, circuit current density, and open circuit voltage), thickness, preparation method, and electrode type for solar cells comprising copper oxide and TiO 2. The efficiency of the solar cells ranged from 0.0005% to 1.62%. The thickness of the TiO 2 and cupric oxide layers ranged from 0.06 to 16 μm, and from 0.18 to 1.5 μm, respectively, depending on the fabrication method. Additionally, we review and discuss the available combinations of copper oxide with other materials (Cu 2 O with ZnO, CuO with ZnO, and CuO with Si), as well as the effect of the thickness of the copper (I) oxide and copper (II) oxide on the solar cell performance. Finally, we present aspects to improve the conversion efficiency of heterojunction solar cells with copper oxides combined with TiO 2. This review will be useful for the construction and further development of thin-film solar cells.
Coatings
This study aimed to synthesize copper oxide (CuO) thin films using an eco-friendly green synthetic approach. A sol-gel spin coating technique was employed for the synthesis of the CuO thin film using Allium cepa as a reducing agent. The fabricated CuO thin film was investigated using the Fourier Transform-Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Ultraviolet-visible spectra studies (UV-Vis), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the Four-Point Probe measurement. The SEM micrographs revealed that the particles were spherically shaped, while the EDX analysis revealed that the CuO thin film was composed of copper and oxygen elements. Furthermore, the XRD analysis confirmed the monoclinic crystalline structure of the CuO thin film, while the FTIR spectroscopy investigated the chemical bonds formed during the production process. Contrarily, the UV-Vis spectroscopy reported a strong absorption of the film at the visible s...
PROCEEDINGS OF THE III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES IN MATERIALS SCIENCE, MECHANICAL AND AUTOMATION ENGINEERING: MIP: Engineering-III – 2021
No doubt how much importance the solar electrical energy has become and developed in the recent decades due to the continuous research in trying to maximize the ability of the CuONps based thin film solar cell in increasing its conversion efficiency. Fulfilling this requires that the porous silicon and the other various layers be integrated with each other. Remarkably optically active nanostructure of copper oxides was synthesized by pulse laser deposition (PLD). The synthesized PS and CuO/PS were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Atomic force microscope (AFM), Reflectivity and Photoluminescence (PL) techniques. Besides, this study determines the electrical properties of prepared Al/CuO/PS/Al; namely current-voltage characteristics in dark. The average crystallite size of Copper oxide NPs was found to be 49.93 nm by AFM. According to PL spectrum, one band was observed at 738 nm and 730 nm for PS and CuO/Ps, respectively. The PL band of PS is attributed to quantum confinement. The obtained solar cell efficiency was in the range of 6.99% compared to the typical solar cell efficiency which was (2.11%). Copper may be accreditedtoplay a major role for this enhancement. These nanostructures solar cells can evolve to a new direction in photovoltaic technology.
Copper oxide thin film and nanowire as a barrier in ZnO dye-sensitized solar cells
Thin Solid Films, 2009
The ZnO dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with different photoelectrodes were studied on the effect of CuO layer as a barrier layer toward power conversion characteristics. The structures of DSSCs based on ZnO as a photoelectrode, Eosin-Y as a dye sensitizer, iodine/iodide solution as an electrolyte and Pt/FTO as a counterelectrode. CuO powder, nanowire prepared by oxidation reaction of copper powder and CuO thin film prepared by evaporation copper thin film, were used as a layer on the top of ZnO layer to form blocking layer. The photocurrent, photovoltage and power conversion efficiency characteristics for DSSCs were measured under illumination of simulated sunlight obtained from a solar simulator with the radiant power of 100 mW/ cm 2. It was found that ZnO DSSCs with CuO thin film exhibited highest current density of 5.10 mA/cm 2 and highest power conversion efficiency of 0.92% than those of CuO powder and nanowire. The enhancement of the power conversion efficiency can be explained in terms of the retardation of the interfacial recombination dynamics of CuO blocking layer.
Electrochimica Acta, 2011
Cu 2 O/ZnO p-n heterojunction solar cells were fabricated by rf sputtering deposition of n-ZnO layer, followed by electrodeposition of p-Cu 2 O layer. The different electrodeposition potentials were applied to deposit Cu 2 O on ZnO. The particle size, crystal faces, crystallinity of Cu 2 O is important factor which determine the p-n junction interface and consequently their effect on the performance of the heterojunction solar cell. It is observed that at −0.6 V, p-Cu 2 O film generates fewer surface states in the interband region due to the termination of [1 1 0] resulting in higher efficiency (0.24%) with maximum particle size (53 nm). The bandgap of Cu 2 O at this potential is found to be 2.17 eV. Furthermore, annealing of ZnO film was performed to get rid of deteriorating one and two dimensional defects, which always reduce the performance of solar cell significantly. We found that the solar cell performance efficiency is nearly doubled by increasing the annealing temperature of ZnO thin films due to increasing electrical conductance and electron mobility. Doping studies and fine tuning of the junction morphology will be necessary to further improve the performance of Cu 2 O/ZnO heterojunction solar cells.
2013
Copper (I) oxide (Cu 2 O) is a direct band gap semiconductor with p-type conductivity and is a potential candidate for multi-junction solar cells. In this work, incoherent light source based photoassisted metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) was used to deposit high quality Cu 2 O thin films on n-type ,100. silicon and quartz substrates. X-ray diffraction studies reveal that crystalline Cu 2 O is deposited. UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy results indicated a band gap of 2.44 eV for Cu 2 O thin films. Transmission electron spectroscopy results show that the Cu 2 O film grows in the form of three-dimensional islands composed of smaller nanocrystalline grains in the range of 10-20 nm. I-V measurements indicate that the Cu 2 O/n-Si device fabricated using the MOCVD process has a lower dark current density than other devices reported in the literature.
p-type copper oxide (CuO) nanocrystals were prepared by a wet chemical method and are used to make thin films by spin casting. CuO nanocrystals were characterised using XRD, Raman, TEM and XPS. Low temperature solution processed thin films of CuO crystals showed a hole mobility of 4.57 Â 10 À4 cm 2 V À1 s À1 perpendicular to the plane of the film and is measured using space charge limited current method. Due to the difficulty in making solution processed homo p–n junction and n-doping of CuO, a planar hybrid heterojunction solar cell is fabricated using solution processed CuO and a n-type organic material, [6,6]-phenyl-C70 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). A power conversion efficiency of 0.23% is obtained for hybrid solar cell comprising CuO as active layer where all the device fabrications were carried out at temperature 100 8C. Analysis of the current density– voltage (J–V) characteristics at different light intensities is carried out to unravel the recombination mechanism occurring at the interface. Further, effect of annealing the active layer on the photovoltaic performance is investigated.