Analysing the Sputtered Al Doped ZnO on <111>-Oriented Cu2O Heterojunction Solar Cell with Improved Performance

Abstract

Electrodeposited Cu₂O/AZO photovoltaic (PV) devices are promising low-cost solar cells. In this research, both layers of Cu₂O and AZO heterojunction architectures are studied as a function of AZO target-Cu₂O substrate distance during the sputtering process. The Cu₂O/AZO PV device has been constructed by electrodeposition of a <111>-p-Cu₂O layer on an Au (111)/Si wafer substrate followed by stacking the AZO layer using a sputtering technique. The Cu₂O/AZO PV device showed a photovoltaic performance under AM1.5 illumination, and the performance changed depending on the target-substrate distance. It is shown that an increase in target-substrate distance during stacking the AZO layer by sputtering mitigated the damage at the Cu₂O/AZO interface. As a result, we were able to improve the Voc and power conversion efficiency from 0.16 V and 0.46 % to 0.30 V and 0.64%, respectively.