Heteroepitaxial Cu(2)O thin film solar cell on metallic substrates

Heteroepitaxial, single-crystal-like Cu(2)O films on inexpensive, flexible, metallic substrates can potentially be used as absorber layers for fabrication of low-cost, high-performance, non-toxic, earth-abundant solar cells. Here, we report epitaxial growth of Cu(2)O films on low cost, flexible, textured metallic substrates. Cu(2)O films were deposited on the metallic templates via pulsed laser deposition under various processing conditions to study the influence of processing parameters on the structural and electronic properties of the films. It is found that pure, epitaxial Cu(2)O phase without any trace of CuO phase is only formed in a limited deposition window of P(O(2)) - temperature. The (00l) single-oriented, highly textured, Cu(2)O films deposited under optimum P(O(2)) - temperature conditions exhibit excellent electronic properties with carrier mobility in the range of 40–60 cm(2) V(−1) s(−1) and carrier concentration over 10(16) cm(−3). The power conversion efficiency of 1.65% is demonstrated from a proof-of-concept Cu(2)O solar cell based on epitaxial Cu(2)O film prepared on the textured metal substrate.