Laser-ablative synthesis of aqueous solutions of transparent conducting oxide nanoparticles for optoelectronic applications

The combining of conventional semiconductors with porous materials has the potential to enhance the splitting of electrons and holes, therefore enhancing the efficiency of solar cells. In the presented work, porous silicon (PS) substrates have been generated through electrochemically etching silicon p-type (111), and then deposited ZnO: NiO nanostructures were created using the pulsed laser ablation (PLA) approach. The structure, surface morphology, and optical characteristics of ZnO: NiO nanostructures implanted in porous silicon were investigated using an X-ray diffractometer, a field emission scanning electron microscope, UV-vis-NIR, and photoluminescence emission spectrum spectroscopy. In relation to ZnO NPs, the X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show a prominent broad diffraction peak at 62.8 degrees, which may be indexed as (103) lattice planes. With relation to NiO NPs, the peaks at 37.2 degrees, 43.1 degrees, 62.8 degrees, 75.4 degrees, and 79.4 degrees may be indexed as (111), (200), (220), (311), and (222) lattice planes. The hexagonal wurtzite structure is aligned with the ZnO: NiO NPs phase. Micrographs obtained using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) demonstrates the sponge-like arrangement of PS. On the other hand, ZnO: NiO nanostructures are composed of spherical grains which are randomly distributed and grow larger as the laser intensity is raised. The outcomes demonstrated that a red shift in the energy gap was caused by higher laser energy. Photovoltaic experiments demonstrate that ZnO: NiO NPs/PS solar cells operate better than the reference sample, which has a PS efficiency of 14.74%. The advancement of PS, ZnO, and NiO-based optoelectronic devices will be significantly impacted by this work.