Improving Efficiency of TiO2:Ag /Si Solar Cell Prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been extensively studied and demonstrated to be suitable to enhance the efficiency of solar cell. In this work, TiO2 is doped with silver nanoparticles (AgNP’s) on glass and the Si substrate by using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. UV–vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), electrical conductivity (σdc), Hall coefficient (RH), current–voltage (I–V), and capacity–voltage (C–V) characterizations have been used to examine the optical, the morphological, and the electrical properties of the films. It has been found that 5 wt.% (Ag) doped TiO2 thin film has the most effect on efficiency of TiO2:Ag /Si solar cell. The (I–V) characteristics showed that the (TiO2) thin film enhances the efficiency of the (p–n) junction solar cell from 1.26 % pure TiO2 to 7.19 % with doping of noble metal (Ag) representing improvement in the efficiency of solar cell leading to estimate empirical equations between efficiency, extinction coefficient, and energy band gap which have a total fit with the experimental data.