Enhancement of Semiconductor Properties of ZnO and Cu2O for Photovoltaic Applications

Abstract

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.