PROPERTIES OF Cu2O ABSORBER LAYER FABRICATED BY ELECTROCHEMICAL DEPOSITION AND ITS SOLAR CELL PERFORMANCE

Cu-O layer, as an absorber, has been researched in many photovoltaic applications, due to its tunable bandgap from 1.4 to 2.1 eV. Here we use an inexpensive transparent substrate of glass coated with FTO and deposit a TiO2 layer using spray pyrolysis, followed by an electrochemical CuxO deposition - each of the materials and processing steps are low cost and can readily be up-scaled for module fabrication. Detailed characterization on our cells reveal a high power conversion efficiency above 1% with a high short circuit current density of 5 mA/cm2, open circuit voltage of 500 mV and fill factor of 40%.