Impact of metal contact on the performance of cupric oxide based thin film solar cells

In this paper we have studied the effects of the contact material on the photovoltaic characteristics of p-CuO/n-Si solar cells fabricated by using the RF sputtering method and annealed by rapid thermal process. We have fabricated three types of solar cells with different front contact. Type (I) is the p-CuO/n-Si solar cells with Cu front contact, Type (II) is the p-CuO/n-Si solar cells with Al front contact and Type (III) is the p-CuO/n-Si solar cells with Cu followed by Al front contact. It has been shown that the Cu/Al as a front contact to the p-CuO can improve the performance of p-CuO/n-Si solar cells. It has been shown that by using the Cu/Al as the front contact the conversion efficiency increases by 70% compared to the Cu or Al contacts.