Preparation and investigation of nanostructured SnO2:Pd/ porous silicon/c-Si heterostructure solar cell

We have deposited pure SnO2 and SnO2:Pd nanostructure films on the quartz and porous silicon PSi substrates using chemical spray pyrolysis technique to fabricate high-efficiency SnO2/PSi solar cells. The porous silicon was prepared using electrochemical etching technique. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of SnO2 and SnO2:Pd films were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra of the films show the presence of a single sharp peak along (110) plane which belongs to crystalline tin oxide film with tetragonal phase. The optical energy gap of the film decreases as the palladium doping concentration increases. Photoluminescence (PL) studies of undoped and doped SnO2 films confirm the presence of the blue shift after the film doping. Raman studies show the existence of E-u, E-g, M-2, and E-2u active infrared vibration modes. Dark and illuminated current-voltage characteristics and capacitance-voltage characteristics of the heterojunction of SnO2/PSi/c-Si and SnO2:Pd/PSi/c-Si heterojunctions were investigated. The responsivity SnO2/PSi heterojunction solar cells results revealed that the heterojunction has two peaks of response positioned at 400 nm and 600 nm and the maximum responsivity was 0.56 A/W at 600 nm for SnO2:Pd/PSi/c-Si heterojunction solar cell doped with 5 wt% of Pd dopant. The conversion efficiency eta of greater than 14% was obtained for SnO2:Pd/PSi solar cell doped with 5 wt%.