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Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications
Silicon-based tandem solar cells incorporating low-cost, abundant, and non-toxic metal oxide materials can increase the conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells beyond their conventional limitations with obvious economic and environmental benefits. In this work, the electrical characteristics of...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316250/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30572661 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11122593 |
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author | Nordseth, Ørnulf Kumar, Raj Bergum, Kristin Fara, Laurentiu Dumitru, Constantin Craciunescu, Dan Dragan, Florin Chilibon, Irinela Monakhov, Edouard Foss, Sean Erik Svensson, Bengt Gunnar |
author_facet | Nordseth, Ørnulf Kumar, Raj Bergum, Kristin Fara, Laurentiu Dumitru, Constantin Craciunescu, Dan Dragan, Florin Chilibon, Irinela Monakhov, Edouard Foss, Sean Erik Svensson, Bengt Gunnar |
author_sort | Nordseth, Ørnulf |
collection | PubMed |
description | Silicon-based tandem solar cells incorporating low-cost, abundant, and non-toxic metal oxide materials can increase the conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells beyond their conventional limitations with obvious economic and environmental benefits. In this work, the electrical characteristics of a metal oxide thin-film heterojunction solar cell based on a cuprous oxide (Cu(2)O) absorber layer were investigated. Highly Al-doped n-type ZnO (AZO) and undoped p-type Cu(2)O thin films were prepared on quartz substrates by magnetron sputter deposition. The electrical and optical properties of these thin films were determined from Hall effect measurements and spectroscopic ellipsometry. After annealing the Cu(2)O film at 900 °C, the majority carrier (hole) mobility and the resistivity were measured at 50 cm(2)/V·s and 200 Ω·cm, respectively. Numerical modeling was carried out to investigate the effect of band alignment and interface defects on the electrical characteristics of the AZO/Cu(2)O heterojunction. The analysis suggests that the incorporation of a buffer layer can enhance the performance of the heterojunction solar cell as a result of reduced conduction band offset. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6316250 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63162502019-01-08 Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications Nordseth, Ørnulf Kumar, Raj Bergum, Kristin Fara, Laurentiu Dumitru, Constantin Craciunescu, Dan Dragan, Florin Chilibon, Irinela Monakhov, Edouard Foss, Sean Erik Svensson, Bengt Gunnar Materials (Basel) Article Silicon-based tandem solar cells incorporating low-cost, abundant, and non-toxic metal oxide materials can increase the conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells beyond their conventional limitations with obvious economic and environmental benefits. In this work, the electrical characteristics of a metal oxide thin-film heterojunction solar cell based on a cuprous oxide (Cu(2)O) absorber layer were investigated. Highly Al-doped n-type ZnO (AZO) and undoped p-type Cu(2)O thin films were prepared on quartz substrates by magnetron sputter deposition. The electrical and optical properties of these thin films were determined from Hall effect measurements and spectroscopic ellipsometry. After annealing the Cu(2)O film at 900 °C, the majority carrier (hole) mobility and the resistivity were measured at 50 cm(2)/V·s and 200 Ω·cm, respectively. Numerical modeling was carried out to investigate the effect of band alignment and interface defects on the electrical characteristics of the AZO/Cu(2)O heterojunction. The analysis suggests that the incorporation of a buffer layer can enhance the performance of the heterojunction solar cell as a result of reduced conduction band offset. MDPI 2018-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6316250/ /pubmed/30572661 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11122593 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Nordseth, Ørnulf Kumar, Raj Bergum, Kristin Fara, Laurentiu Dumitru, Constantin Craciunescu, Dan Dragan, Florin Chilibon, Irinela Monakhov, Edouard Foss, Sean Erik Svensson, Bengt Gunnar Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title | Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title_full | Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title_fullStr | Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title_full_unstemmed | Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title_short | Metal Oxide Thin-Film Heterojunctions for Photovoltaic Applications |
title_sort | metal oxide thin-film heterojunctions for photovoltaic applications |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316250/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30572661 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11122593 |
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