Doped Zinc Oxide Nanostructures for Photovoltaic Solar Cells Application

Abstract

Zinc oxide and doping effects of Cu on its structural, morphological, optical, and surface wettability properties and the consequent influence on photoelectrochemical solar cell performance has been reviewed. Cu dopant in the doping solution is varied in the range of 1 to 5 at.% which significantly affected the properties of ZnO. Slight changes in the lattice parameters of the Cu-doped zinc oxide (CZO) electrodes were reported, due to the successful substitution of Zn 2+ by Cu 2+ and also enhancement in crystallinity of the films at 3 at.% Cu due to reduction in crystallographic defects in the film. Surface morphologies were reported with densely grown nanorods over the varied range of Cu, with 3 at.% having the densest microstructures with average diameter approximately 125 nm. A review of optical properties indicated significant enhancement in absorption edge of approximately 60 nm into the visible band for the nanorods with 3 at.% Cu content due to light scattering. Optical energy band-gaps decrease from 3.03 to 2.70 eV with Cu doping. Surface wettability was adjudged hydrophilic for all the films, implying high porosity and water contact angles depended on Cu content. Photoelectrochemical cell performance indicated an n-type photoactivity in sodium sulfate (Na 2 SO 4) electrolyte, which motivates to check its feasibility in solar cell applications.

Atomic Layer Deposition of ZnO on Mesoporous Silica: Insights into Growth Behavior of ZnO via In-Situ Thermogravimetric Analysis

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“…ZnO with its unique electronic and optical properties is truly a multi-functional material with applications in optoelectronics [1], sensors [2], photovoltaics [3], and catalysis [4]. ZnO is a wide bandgap semiconductor (e.g., 3.37 eV) with a large exciton binding energy (60 meV) [5].…”

Effects of Dopants and Processing Parameters on the Properties of ZnO-V2O5-Based Varistors Prepared by Powder Metallurgy: A Review

“…Crystallographic defects ( Figure 6 ) are essential characteristics in designing MO semiconductors, such as ZnO, TiO 2 , SnO 2 , In 2 O 3 , and so on [ 137 , 138 ]. The field of semiconductor physics, including defect physics, has been extensively studied and presented in many state-of-the-art publications [ 102 , 130 , 137 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 ].…”

EVALUASI EFEK INKORPORASI KOMBINASI DOPAN Mg2+ DAN Fe3+ TERHADAP KARAKTERISTIK OPTIK DAN STRUKTUR NANOPLATFORM TERANOSTIK ZnO

“…Inkorporasi dopan merupakan salah satu penekatan yang dapat ditempuh untuk mengubah sifat-sifat suatu nanopartikel, yaitu dengan cara mengintegrasikan bahan "pengotor" ke dalam struktur kristal semikonduktor (7). Magnesium (Mg 2+ ) merupakan salah satu unsur yang masuk dalam golongan IIA pada tabel periodik yang dapat digunakan untuk memodifikasi sifat optik melalui efek pengubahan nilai bandgap.…”