Browsing by Author "Kariyawasm, M"

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    Enhancement of Semiconductor Properties of ZnO and Cu2O for Photovoltaic Applications
    (Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, SLIIT, 2023-11-01) Kariyawasm, M; Hewage, J
    The Photovoltaics phenomenon is one of the major turning points in the battle against the depletion of fossil fuels. Sunlight being the main resource in photovoltaics, there still remains a quest to harvest it efficiently, to generate electricity. This study is focused on designing a basic, cost-effective prototype solar cell using ZnO and Cu2O nanoparticles (NPs) under normal university laboratory conditions. An ITO-coated glass was used as the substrate of the solar cell and a modified low-temperature chemical bath deposition method was used to fabricate the solar cell. Both ZnO and Cu2O were synthesized by aqueous precipitation methods while cobalt co-doped Ag-ZnO NPs were synthesized by solvothermal method. The UV-spectroscopic analysis confirmed the characteristic band of ZnO-NPs at 367.5 nm, Cu2O at 360 nm and cobalt co-doped Ag-ZnO at 378 nm. The FTIR spectrum showed sharp peaks at 460 cm-1 and 606 cm-1 for the corresponding Zn-O bond and Cu-O bond respectively with a broad peak at 1329 cm-1 for Cu2O FTIR, due to the chemisorbed and/or physisorbed H2O and CO2 molecules on the surface of nanostructure. The EDX analysis showed the presence of carbon impurity in ZnO-NPs which resulted in a deviated XRD pattern for ZnO while Cu2O showed the characteristic XRD pattern. The solar cell, which was illuminated under three different lux conditions had a characteristic J-V plot when measured through Gamry Potentiostat. This simple, cost-effective technique can be adopted by large-scale solar cell manufacturing firms to build small prototype solar cells.