Optimization of defected ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterostructure solar cell

In the present work, we review the optimization of the performance of a newly defected ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterojunction solar cell using the Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structures (AMPS-1D) computer simulator under the AM1.5G illumination and the operating temperature of 300 K. The light J-V characteristics were investigated by varying the input parameters and the temperature. The use of p-type Cu2O-back layer in the structure is to enhance the open-circuit voltage (V-OC). The performance of ZnO/Si/Cu2O heterojunction solar cell is studied in order to optimize the layers parameters, such as the thickness of p-Si absorber layer, the doping and the defects concentrations of the p-Si absorber layer and to obtain an efficient proposed structure. The defects concentration of p-Si absorber layer was fixed in the first step at N-def(p-Si) = 10(14)/cm(3). With the optimized p-Si layer parameters, an efficiency of 16.23% was obtained with J(SC) similar to 26.25 mA/cm(2), V-OC similar to 0.72 V and FF similar to 0.85 for n-ZnO window (0.1 mu m)/p-Si Absorber (10 mu m)/p-Cu2O (0.1 mu m) heterostructure. For N-def(p-Si) lower than 10(14)/cm(3), the AMPS-1D simulation showed an appreciable performance. For N-def(p-Si) = 10(11)/cm(3) we estimate best characteristics of about: J(SC) similar to 27.57 mA/cm(2), V-OC similar to 0.78 V, FF similar to 0.90 and Eff similar to 21.78%.