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http://dx.doi.org/10.21218/CPR.2018.6.1.021

The Influence of Deposition Temperature of ALD n-type Buffer ZnO Layer on Device Characteristics of Electrodeposited Cu2O Thin Film Solar Cells  

Cho, Jae Yu (Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Optoelectronics Convergence Center, Chonnam National University)
Tran, Man Hieu (Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Optoelectronics Convergence Center, Chonnam National University)
Heo, Jaeyeong (Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Optoelectronics Convergence Center, Chonnam National University)
Publication Information
Current Photovoltaic Research / v.6, no.1, 2018 , pp. 21-26 More about this Journal
Abstract
Beside several advantages, the PV power generation as a clean energy source, is still below the supply level due to high power generation cost. Therefore, the interest in fabricating low-cost thin film solar cells is increasing continuously. $Cu_2O$, a low cost photovoltaic material, has a wide direct band gap of ~2.1 eV has along with the high theoretical energy conversion efficiency of about 20%. On the other hand, it has other benefits such as earth-abundance, low cost, non-toxic, high carrier mobility ($100cm^2/Vs$). In spite of these various advantages, the efficiency of $Cu_2O$ based solar cells is still significantly lower than the theoretical limit as reported in several literatures. One of the reasons behind the low efficiency of $Cu_2O$ solar cells can be the formation of CuO layer due to atmospheric surface oxidation of $Cu_2O$ absorber layer. In this work, atomic layer deposition method was used to remove the CuO layer that formed on $Cu_2O$ surface. First, $Cu_2O$ absorber layer was deposited by electrodeposition. On top of it buffer (ZnO) and TCO (AZO) layers were deposited by atomic layer deposition and rf-magnetron sputtering respectively. We fabricated the cells with a change in the deposition temperature of buffer layer ranging between $80^{\circ}C$ to $140^{\circ}C$. Finally, we compared the performance of fabricated solar cells, and studied the influence of buffer layer deposition temperature on $Cu_2O$ based solar cells by J-V and XPS measurements.
Keywords
$Cu_2O$; CuO; ZnO; Buffer layer; Atomic layer deposition;
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