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Performance of Si-based solar cell utilizing optimized Al-doped ZnO films as TCO layer

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Abstract

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is one of the most popular transparent conducting oxide layers that can be employed in many optoelectronic applications in particular in photovoltaic devices due to being a low-cost and nontoxic material. In this study, we report on the effect of deposition pressure and substrate temperature on the properties of AZO films and solar cell performance by employing the optimized films. This study consists of two stages, the first of which concerns the optimization deposition pressure while the second is the substrate temperature of AZO films by evaluating the structural, optical, and electrical properties of the films. The deposited AZO thin film under 10 mTorr deposition pressure exhibited high optical transmission (89.9%), low electrical resistivity (9.1 × 10−2 Ω.cm), and high carrier concentration (3.74 × 1019 cm−3) among the others. The impact of substrate temperature was then investigated using this deposition pressure at room temperature, 150, 200, and 250 °C. The deposited AZO films at 150 °C temperature were found to possess the highest optical transmission (91.1%), lowest resistivity (9.9 × 10−4 Ω.cm), and highest carrier concentration (1.1 × 1020 cm−3) values. Hence, the 10 mTorr deposition pressure and 150 °C substrate temperature were selected as the optimum growth parameters to obtain AZO films, which were then employed in the cell structure. It was, thus, revealed that utilizing AZO films in silicon-based solar cell using such parameters led to the enhancement in the cell efficiency.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanotechnology Application and Research Center, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Niğde, Turkey

    Ali Altuntepe, Onur Hasret, Mehmet Ali Olgar & Recep Zan

  2. Department of Physics, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Niğde, Turkey

    Serkan Erkan, Atajan Yagmyrov, Mehmet Ali Olgar & Recep Zan

  3. TUBITAK, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Kavaklıdere, Ankara, Turkey

    Duygu Yazici

  4. Department of Physics, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Rize, Turkey

    Murat Tomakin

Authors
  1. Ali Altuntepe
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  2. Serkan Erkan
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  5. Duygu Yazici
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  7. Mehmet Ali Olgar
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  8. Recep Zan
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Contributions

AA Writing original draft and measurements. SE Writing original draft and measurements. OH Literature review and measurements. AY Literature review and measurements. DY Writing—review and editing, visualization. MT Experimental procedure design, visualization. MAO Data curation, writing—review and editing, validation, supervision. RZ Conceptualization, data curation, writing—review and editing, validation, supervision.

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Correspondence to Recep Zan.

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Altuntepe, A., Erkan, S., Hasret, O. et al. Performance of Si-based solar cell utilizing optimized Al-doped ZnO films as TCO layer. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-09557-z

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