Cu2O Solar Cells Research Articles

Enhancing the current density of electrodeposited ZnO–Cu2O solar cells by engineering their heterointerfaces

Using ZnO seed layers, an efficient approach for enhancing the heterointerface quality of electrodeposited ZnO–Cu2O solar cells is devised. We introduce a sputtered ZnO seed layer followed by the sequential electrodeposition of ZnO and Cu2O films. The seed layer is employed to control the growth and crystallinity and to augment the surface area of the electrodeposited ZnO films, thereby tuning the quality of the ZnO–Cu2O heterointerface. Additionally, the seed layer also assists in forming high quality ZnO films, with no pin-holes, in a high pH electrolyte solution. X-ray electron diffraction patterns, scanning electron and atomic force microscopy images, as well as photovoltaic measurements, clearly demonstrate that the incorporation of certain seed layers results in the alteration of the heterointerface quality, a change in the heterojunction area and the crystallinity of the films near the junction, which influence the current density of photovoltaic devices.

Copper (I) oxide (Cu<sub>2</sup>) based solar cells - a review

Copper (I) oxide (Cu2O) is a potential material for the fabrication of low cost solar cells for terrestrial application. A detailed survey on the previous work so far carried out on Cu2O based solar cells has been presented. The aspects discussed include the fabrication of Schottky (metal/semiconductor) barrier Cu2O solar cells, where different low work function metals are used to form the Schottky barrier solar cells. The problems associated with the Cu2O Schottky barrier solar cells and efforts made at improving the performance of these solar cells are highlighted. Discussions on heterojunction solar cells with Cu2O have also been presented. Various transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) used in forming the heterojunction cells are mentioned, and successes and failures of using them highlighted. The technological developments of these cells are still in their infancy and the performance remains very poor. The root causes of this poor performance are analyzed and possible areas for future research in the field are outlined. Keyword: Copper (I) oxide, Solar cells, Solar cells, Schottky barrier sola cells

Effect of annealing on the resistivity of copper (I) oxide solar cells

The effect of annealing on the resistively of copper (I) oxides (Cu2O) samples has been investigated in detail. The resistivily of the sample is a function of the power output of such Cu2O solar cell. Results revealed that the annealing of Cu2O samples improves the output performance compared to that of unannealed samples by about 36%. The results on the resistivity of the samples oxidized at different temperatures for different times but annealed for some duration at an identical temperature after proper quenching in deionizer water shows a lower and higher resistivities for annealed and unannealed samples respectively. Key words: Annealed, unannealed, resistivity, quenching, Cu2O Solar Cell.