Film thickness dependent photovoltaic performance investigation of p-CuO/n-Si heterojunctions grown by chemical bath deposition process

Thin films of cupric oxide (p-CuO) are grown on silicon (n-Si) substrates by using chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique and the thickness is varied in the range of 60 nm to 178 nm by varying the deposition time. The chemical composition and photovoltaic properties of the grown films are observed to depend significantly on their thickness. FESEM, EDAX and ellipsometric measurements have been conducted to investigate such thickness dependent chemical composition and structural variation in detail. Also, the impact of thickness variation of CuO films on the performance of p-CuO/n-Si heterojunction solar cells has been studied by measuring its short-circuit current density (JSC), open-circuit voltage (VOC), fill-factor (FF) and efficiency (n). The 10-min CBD grown thin film of p-CuO with 110 nm average thickness on n-Si substrate provides the optimal photovoltaic performance. The study suggests a technological route for developing high quality CuO thin film for photovoltaic applications by employing chemical bath deposition method with appropriate active layer thickness.