New heterojunction solar cells using copper oxide ingrained MWCNT: Fabrication and performance analysis

Abstract

Despite the development of new technologies, cost and methods of fabricating the solar cells are complex. In this work, new heterojunction solar cells have been developed by facile methods using nano CuO/Cu2O ingrained multi-walled carbon nanotubes as the active absorber layer and zinc oxide as the transparent window layer. Nano pastes were formulated by ball milling and casted on fluorine doped tin oxide substrates using spin coating process. Solar cells, having copper oxides as absorber layers, exhibited an efficiency of 0.03–0.19%, while the copper oxide ingrained multi-walled carbon nanotube layers boosted up the efficiency of solar cells to a maximum of 2.32% by synergistic action. Fine-tuning of the thickness of MWCNT nanocomposite layer further enhanced the efficiency of the champion solar cell to 4.08%. Even though more optimization of the fabrication parameters is required for achieving higher photon conversion efficiencies and meeting up the commercial standards, this work successfully demonstrated a simplistic approach for the fabrication of low cost solar cells.