Simulation of CuO/ZnO heteroj unction for photovoltaic applications

Abstract

Inorganic semiconductors become one of the most gifted candidate for photovoltaic applications instead of high cost silicon devices and organics ones. Therefore, in this paper, inorganic CuO/ZnO heteroj unction is simulated as thin layer solar cells employing SCAPS program. Both effect of CuO and ZnO layers thickness on basic parameters of solar cells is investigated deeply. Simulated results of this solar cell device indicate that the absorber layer is responsible for separation process of generated carriers. Higher efficiency of about 23 % could be achieved with 2 μ of CuO thickness and 100 nm of ZnO layer for devices. Generally, the main aspects that controlling the solar cell performance are depletion region width, built-in potential, the charge carrier collection length and generation and recombination rates.