Toshihiro Miyata
Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan
Title: Present status and future prospects for super low-cost Cu2 O-based solar cells
Biography
Biography: Toshihiro Miyata
Abstract
Oxide semiconductor thin films are very attractive materials for optoelectronic device applications, such as transparent conducting electrode and solar cells. Recently, a substantial improvement of conversion efficiency has been reported in solar cells fabricated using n-type oxide semiconductor thin films deposited on p-type cuprous oxide (p-Cu2O) as the active layer. This paper describes the present status and prospects for further development of super low-cost Cu2O-based hetero- and/or homo-junction solar cells. We have recently reported that the obtainable photovoltaic properties could be dramatically improved in p-n hetero-junction solar cells fabricated by depositing appropriate n-type oxide semiconductor thin films on p-type Cu2O sheets that had been prepared by a thermal oxidization of copper sheets. The observed improvement suggests that it is necessary to stabilize the surface of techniques for applying the hetero-junctions. Consequently, the obtainable performance could be improved by not only the formation of an n-type oxide semiconductor thin-film layer, prepared using low-temperature and low-damage deposition methods such as pulsed laser deposition (PLD), but also the use of high-quality Cu2O sheets. It shows the structure of Cu2O-based p-n hetero-junction solar cells. The thermally oxidized polycrystalline Cu2O sheets exhibited a resistivity on the order of 103 Ωcm, whole concentration on the order of 1013 cm-3 and Hall mobility in the range of 100-110 cm2/Vs. For example, a high efficiency of 8.23% was obtained by AZO/n-type Zn1-X- GeX-O/p-Cu2O hetero-junction solar cell fabricated by depositing using low-damage PLD on non-intentionally heated Cu2O sheets. This is the highest value of the efficiency of hetero-junction solar cells using Cu2O system. In addition, we will also describe that the fabrication of p-n homo-junction Cu2O solar cells using i-type or n-type Cu2O thin films grown by electrochemical deposited (ECD) method.
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