Enhancement of CuO/Si Solar Cell Efficiency by Cu2O Doping Prepared Via Thermal Evaporation Technique

Abstract

CuO:Cu2O/Si heterojunctions have been prepared with different concentrations of Cu2O nanoparticles using the thermal evaporation technique. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the prepared films are polycrystalline with orthorhombic structure and preferential orientation (110) direction along the [Formula: see text] axis at [Formula: see text], which corresponds to the pure CuO with crystallite size 18[Formula: see text]nm, while the particle size ranged from 14[Formula: see text]nm to 34 nm (resulted from SEM test). The optical properties were studied by recording the absorbance spectra using the UV–visible spectrophotometer. The absorbance increased with Cu2O doping. The high values of the energy gap refer to the quantization effect. The electrical properties including the Hall effect were studied. CuO:Cu2O/Si heterojunctions have been prepared at different concentrations. [Formula: see text]–[Formula: see text] characteristics show that the Cu2O doping increases the energy conversion efficiency by retarding the electron–hole recombination and the improved device performance is caused by the high short-circuit current ([Formula: see text] and open circuit voltage ([Formula: see text] and found that the highest efficiency ([Formula: see text] at doping 0.006 Cu2O 3.471% with [Formula: see text] of 2.20[Formula: see text]V, [Formula: see text] of 0.0170[Formula: see text]mA cm[Formula: see text] and F.F of 0.6497 at [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]mW/cm2.