Three-dimensional structures based on ZnO/CdS and ZnO/(Zn,Mg)O core–shell nanowires embedded in Cu(In,Ga)S2 for solar cell applications

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThin film and core-shell nanowire heterostructures containing copper indium gallium sulfide Cu(In,Ga)S 2 (CIGS) as light absorber are fabricated by low cost, solution based processes. The unique structures consist of ZnO and CdS or (Zn,Mg)O core-shell nanowire arrays embedded inside CIGS thin films for solar cell applications. Nontoxic (Zn,Mg)O buffer layer deposited by atomic layer deposition is proven to be suitable for replacing solution grown CdS for fabricating CIGS nanowire solar cells. A systemic comparison of device performance is made between the CIGS nanowire solar cells and their thin film counterparties with different final treatment temperatures. Overall, the nanowire devices show higher efficiency than the corresponding planar structures fabricated under similar conditions. Effect of nanowire on the solar cell performance is further studied by using nanowires of various lengths, which reveals that the longer nanowire arrays resulted in a higher short circuit current. This study represents the first working CIGS nanowire solar cells reported so far and provides an opportunity for investigating the mechanism of nanowire solar cells using a well-defined material system.

Synthesis of ZnO Nanowires and Their Photovoltaic Application: ZnO Nanowires/AgGaSe2 Thin Film Core‐Shell Solar Cell

“…There are only a few studies in literature that deal with coreshell solar cells based on integration of NWs into chalcopyrite thin films. For instance, energy efficiencies for core-shell solar cells consisted of ZnO/CdS/CIGS and ZnO/(Zn, Mg)O/CIGS were found to be as 2.18% and 4.1%, respectively [28]. However, in the present investigation, as it is the first study based on reporting the performance of core-shell n-ZnO NWs/p-AgGaSe 2 solar cell, it is not possible to compare the results with that reported in literature.…”

Atomic-scale tomography of semiconductor nanowires

“…Enhanced solar cells with various semiconductor nanowires and diverse formation of P/N junctions were widely reported based on the feature of high absorption of solar spectrum and collection of photogenerated carriers of nanowires [88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97]. Ebaid [98] investigated the combination between the band gap engineering and performance of solar cell by tuning the content of In, as shown in Fig.…”