Growth and characterisation of potentiostatically electrodeposited Cu2O and Cu thin films

Electrodeposited Cu2O Thin Films for Fabrication of CuO/Cu2O Heterojunction

“…Cu 2 O has a direct band gap of 2 eV (Rakhshani, 1986;Siripala et al, 1996), which lies in the acceptable range of window material for photovoltaic applications. It is a stoichiometry defect type semiconductor having a cubic crystal structure with lattice constant of 4.27 Å (Ghijsen et al, 1988;Wijesundera et al, 2006). The theoretical conversion efficiency limit for Cu 2 O based solar cells is about 20% [5].…”

“…Therefore it was focused to prepare Cu 2 O at low temperature, which may provide better characteristics in this regard. Among the various Cu 2 O deposition techniques (Olsen et al, 1981;Aveline & Bonilla, 1981;Fortin & Masson, 1981;Roos et al, 1983;Sears & Fortin, 1984;Rakhshani, 1986;Rai, 1988;Santra et al, 1992;Musa et al, 1998;Maruyama, 1998;Ivill et al, 2003;Hames & San, 2004;Ogwa et al, 2005), electrodeposition (Siripala & Jayakody, 1986, Siripala et al, 1996Rakhshani & Varghese, 1987a, 1988bMahalingam et al, 2004;Tang et al, 2005;Wijesundera et al, 2006) is an attractive one because of its simplicity, low cost and low-temperature process and on the other hand the composition of the material can be easily adjusted leading to changes in physical properties. Most of the techniques produce p-type conducting thin films.…”

“…Many theoretical and experimental studies (Guy, 1972;Pollack & Trivich, 1975;Kaufman & Hawkins, 1984;Harukawa et al, 2000;Wright & Nelson, 2002;Paul et al, 2006) have been revealed that the Cu vacancies originate the p-type conductivity. However, electrodeposition (Siripala & Jayakody, 1986, Siripala et al, 1996Wijesundera et al, 2000;Wijesundera et al, 2006) of Cu 2 O thin films in a slightly acidic aqueous baths produce n-type conductivity. Further it has been reported that the origin of this n-type behavior is due to oxygen vacancies and/or additional copper atoms.…”

“…The electrodeposition of Cu 2 O is carried out potentiostatically or galvanostatically (Rakhshani & Varghese, 1987a, 1988bMahalingam et al, 2000;Mahalingam et al, 2002). Dependency of parameters (concentrations, pH, temperature of the bath, deposition potential with deposits) had been investigated by several research groups (Zhou & Switzer, 1998;Mahalingam et al, 2002;Tang et al, 2005;Wijesundera et al, 2006). The results showed that electrodeposition is very good tool to manipulate the deposits (structure, properties, grain shape and size, etc) by changing the parameters.…”

Electrodeposition of n-type Cuprous Oxide Thin Films

“…We have investigated the possibility of depositing thin n-Cu 2 O films on conducting substrates using the method of electrodeposition (8)(9)(10)(11). The first step during the electrodeposition process of Cu 2 O films on the electrode will be the formation of Cu+ ions at the surface due to the cathodic reaction [1] given below (12,13).…”