Effect of thickness, bandgap, and carrier concentration on the basic parameters of Cu₂O nanostructures photovoltaics: numerical simulation study

ABSTRACT

There is no clear data about the optimum thicknesses, band gaps, and charge densities of Cu₂O thin films to fabricate solar cells. Therefore, here, Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator (SCAPS) program was employed to simulate the Cu₂O nanostructures solar cells. Effect of window layer thickness, absorber layer thickness, bandgap, and carrier concentration on basic parameters of Cu₂O solar cells were studied. Results revealed that window layer thickness in range from 0.3 to 0.4 µm is optimum to produce a higher performance of about 6.5%. Bandgap should be greater than 2.1 eV and donor carrier concentration under 1×10¹⁶ cm^-3 are required to improve solar cell efficiency of about 8%. Built-in potential, width of the depletion layer, collection length of charge carrier, lifetime of minority carrier, and recombination rate are the main factors directing performance of devices. Consequently, employing our results to fabricate Cu₂O solar cells is a step forward to improve efficiencies.

KEYWORDS:

• Cu₂O nanostructures
• homojunction
• solar cells
• numerical simulation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Marc Burgelman, University of Gent, Belgium, for providing the SCAPS simulation software. Funding and support by the STDF (Project ID: 33389) as well as by the ASRT (Project ID: 6689) are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology [6689]; Science and Technology Development Fund [33389].