Fabrication and characterization of flexible solar cell from electrodeposited Cu^sub 2^O thin film on plastic substrate

• Published in: Solar energy 2015-12, Vol.122, p.1193
• Main Authors: Abdelfatah, Mahmoud, Ledig, Johannes, El-Shaer, Abdelhamid, Wagner, Alexander, Sharafeev, Azat, Lemmens, Peter, Mosaad, Mohsen Mohamed, Waag, Andreas, Bakin, Andrey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Fabrication; Photovoltaic cells; Plastics; Scanning electron microscopy; Solar cells; Solar energy; Substrates; Thin films
• ISSN: 0038-092X; 1471-1257

We present here for the first time the fabracition of a p-Cu...O/ZnO/AZO flexible heterojunction solar cell by electrodeposition of Cu2O thin film on a plastic substrate and sputtering of ZnO:Al layer. The Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) has been employed to insert 5 nm ZnO as buffer layer. The heterojunction solar cell was characterized by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy that show pyramidal shape and phonon modes for Cu...O thin film. Current-voltage (J-V), capacitance-voltage (C-V) and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements were performed to understand the heterojunction properties. The solar cell device exhibits a power conversion efficiency of 0.897 ± 0.005% with an open circuit voltage of V... = 300 mV, a short circuit current density of J... = 6.819 ± 0.048 mA cm... and a fill factor of FF = 0.439 ± 0.006. The values of the built-in potential and the acceptor concentration at the junction were estimated from the reverse bias C-V measurement to be 0.37 V and 6.67 x 10... cm..., respectively. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)