Electrical properties of n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction photovoltaic devices

ZnO semiconductor material has been widely utilized in various applications in semiconductor device technology owing to its unique electrical and optical features. It is a promising as solar cell material, because of its low cost, n-type conductivity and wide direct band gap. In this work ZnO/Si heterojunctions were fabricated by using pulsed laser deposition. Vacuum chamber was evacuated to a base pressure of approximately $2{\times}10^{-6}Torr$. ZnO thin films were grown on p-Si (100) substrate at oxygen partial pressure from 5mTorr to 40mTorr. Growth temperature of ZnO thin films was set to 773K. A pulsed (10 Hz) Nd:YAG laser operating at a wavelength of 266 nm was used to produce a plasma plume from an ablated a ZnO target, whose density of laser energy was $10J/cm^2$. Thickness of all the thin films of ZnO was about 300nm. The optical property was characterized by photoluminescence and crystallinity of ZnO was analyzed by X-ray diffraction. For fabrication ZnO/Si heterojunction diodes, indium metal and Al grid patterns were deposited on back and front side of the solar cells by using thermal evaporator, respectively. Finally, current-voltage characteristics of the ZnO/Si structure were studied by using Keithly 2600. Under Air Mass 1.5 Global solar simulator with an irradiation intensity of $100mW/cm^2$, the electrical properties of ZnO/Si heterojunction photovoltaic devices were analyzed.