New efficient solar cell structures based on zinc oxide nanorods

In this paper, cheap and efficient photovoltaic cells based on ZnO/Si heterostructure are discussed. These cells contain zinc oxide nanorods (ZnONR) grown by a low temperature hydrothermal method on a p-type silicon surface. The hydrothermal method applied in the present work uses cheap precursors and allows reproducible and controllable growth of 3D systems. As-grown ZnONR on Si surface are uniformly covered by a zinc oxide (ZnO) layer followed by an aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) layer. The latter is deposited on top of the cell as transparent conductive oxide (TCO). Both zinc oxide and aluminum doped zinc oxide layers are grown by a low temperature atomic layer deposition (LT ALD) method. Thickness of ZnO layers is optimized to increase significantly the light-trapping effect and thus the photovoltaic (PV) response. We evaluate impact of ZnO thickness on the PV devices operation. It is found that PV efficiency increases when thickness of the ZnO layer changes from 50 nm to 500 nm. The best response of solar cells is achieved for a sample containing ZnO layer with a thickness equal to 500 nm. The overall photovoltaic response is 10.9% and can be further improved by contact and Si layer optimization. (c) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.