TiO2/Cu2O all-oxide heterojunction solar cells produced by spray pyrolysis

Michele Pavan, Sven Rühle, Adam Ginsburg, David A. Keller, Hannah Noa Barad, Paolo M. Sberna, Daniela Nunes, Rodrigo Martins, Assaf Y. Anderson, Arie Zaban, Elvira Fortunato

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165 Scopus citations

Abstract

Here we present for the first time a TiO2/Cu2O all-oxide heterojunction solar cell entirely produced by spray pyrolysis onto fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) covered glass substrates, using silver as a back contact. A combinatorial approach was chosen to investigate the impact of the TiO2 window layer and the Cu2O light absorber thicknesses. We observe an open circuit voltage up to 350 mV and a short circuit current density which is strongly dependent of the Cu2O thickness, reaching a maximum of ~0.4 mA/cm2. Optical investigation reveals that a thickness of 300 nm spray pyrolysis deposited Cu2O is sufficient to absorb most photons with an energy above the symmetry allowed optical transition of 2.5 eV, indicating that the low current densities are caused by strong recombination in the absorber that consists of small Cu2O grains.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)549-556
Number of pages8
JournalSolar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Volume132
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Funding

This study was funded by the European Commission under the FP7 AllOxidePV project “Novel Composite Oxides by Combinatorial Material Synthesis for Next Generation All-Oxide-Photovoltaics” number 309018 and the FP7 ERC AdG project “Transparent Electronics” number 228144 . Moreover this work was partially funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT-MEC) through projects EXCL/CTM-NAN/0201/2012 and PEst-C/CTM/LA0025/2013-14 .

FundersFunder number
FCT-MECPEst-C/CTM/LA0025/2013-14, EXCL/CTM-NAN/0201/2012
FP7 ERC
Seventh Framework Programme692373, 228144, 309018
European Commission
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

    Keywords

    • All-oxide-photovoltaics
    • High throughput characterization
    • Spray pyrolysis
    • TiO/CuO heterojunction

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