Effect of Zinc Oxide on the Efficiency Enhancement of Al/Li2O/PSi/Si/Al solar cell

Abstract

In this paper, electrochemical etching of the p-type silicon wafer is used to prepare p-type porous silicon with current density of 10 mA.cm− 2 for 10 minutes. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) has been used to study porous silicon layer surface morphology. Zinc oxide and lithium oxide nanoparticles are prepared separately by chemical precipitation method and simple precipitation method, respectively and deposited on glass substrates by drop casting method. Moreover,, the structural properties of the films were analyzed by using XRD and SEM. The XRD results showed that the ZnO and Li2O films are polycrystalline with hexagonal wurtzite structure and cubic structure, and preferred orientation along (101) and (003) planes, respectively. Using Scherrer's formula, the crystallite size was measured and it was found that ZnO and Li2O thin films have a crystallite size of 22.04 and 45.6 nm respectively. Surface topography of the prepared thin films is studied by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Later, certain proportions of both materials were mixed and deposited on porous silicon using drop casting method at thickness of 1.4 µm. After that, the characteristics of the solar cell were investigated. Mixing zinc oxide nanoparticles in particular proportions with lithium oxide played a major role in increasing the solar cell's performance. The highest prepared film efficiency was obtained at mixing ratio (0.5: 0.5) for (ZnO: Li2O) and its value was (11.09 %).