Optimization of defected ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterostructure solar cell

Abstract

In the present work, we review the optimization of the performance of a newly defected ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterojunction solar cell using the Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structures (AMPS-1D) computer simulator under the AM1.5G illumination and the operating temperature of 300 K. The light J-V characteristics were investigated by varying the input parameters and the temperature. The use of p-type Cu2O-back layer in the structure is to enhance the open-circuit voltage (VOC). The performance of ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterojunction solar cell is studied in order to optimize the layers parameters, such as the thickness of p-Si absorber layer, the doping and the defects concentrations of the p-Si absorber layer and to obtain an efficient proposed structure. The defects concentration of p-Si absorber layer was fixed in the first step at Ndef(p-Si) = 1014/cm3. With the optimized p-Si layer parameters, an efficiency of 16.23% was obtained with JSC ~26.25 mA/cm2, VOC ~0.72 V and FF~0.85 for n-ZnO window (0.1 μm)/p-Si Absorber (10 μm)/p-Cu2O (0.1 μm) heterostructure. For Ndef(p-Si) lower than 1014/cm3, the AMPS-1D simulation showed an appreciable performance. For Ndef(p-Si) = 1011/cm3 we estimate best characteristics of about: JSC ~27.57 mA/cm2, VOC ~0.78 V, FF~0.90 and Eff ~ 21.78%.