Formation of Hierarchical Zinc Oxide Nanostructures for Solar Energy Converters and Photovoltaics

Abstract

Zinc oxide is a promising material for the fabrication of thin film layers for a new generation of photovoltaic devices and solar thermal collectors, due to the unique optical and electrical properties as well as the propensity to form fil­amentous one-dimensional submicron structures, namely nanowires, nanorods, nanotubes, nanobelts, and hierarchical nanostructures with developed surface and projected superhydrophobicity. We identified the possibility for a develop­ment of planar single-layer antireflection coatings and/or arrays of nanorods of this material as having the shape of hexagonal prisms, and demonstrating the moth eye effect on the substrates of transparent conductive tin dioxide and on silicon wafers with embedded homojunctions. The optimization of the pulsed electrodeposition of zinc oxide arrays adjust the size of parabolic nanonipples for the implementation of antireflection coatings with the moth eye effect on var­ious substrates, including flexible. The antireflection coatings will be developed for thin-film photovoltaic devices of substrate configuration based on kesterite, tin sulphide, and fullerene layers, for the cadmium telluride based photovoltaic cells with bilateral sensitivity of superstrate configuration on the flexible sub­strates and for optoelectronic devices based on zinc selenide for the ultraviolet spectra.